Volpone; Or, The Fox (Act 4 Scene 4.1)

A STREET.

[ENTER SIR POLITICK WOULD-BE AND PEREGRINE.]

SIR P
I told you, sir, it was a plot: you see
What observation is! You mention'd me,
For some instructions: I will tell you, sir,
(Since we are met here in this height of Venice,)
Some few perticulars I have set down,
Only for this meridian, fit to be known
Of your crude traveller, and they are these.
I will not touch, sir, at your phrase, or clothes,
For they are old.

PER
Sir, I have better.

SIR P
Pardon,
I meant, as they are themes.

PER
O, sir, proceed:
I'll slander you no more of wit, good sir.

SIR P
First, for your garb, it must be grave and serious,
Very reserv'd, and lock'd; not tell a secret
On any terms, not to your father; scarce
A fable, but with caution; make sure choice
Both of your company, and discourse; beware
You never speak a truth—

PER
How!

SIR P
Not to strangers,
For those be they you must converse with, most;
Others I would not know, sir, but at distance,
So as I still might be a saver in them:
You shall have tricks else past upon you hourly.
And then, for your religion, profess none,
But wonder at the diversity, of all:
And, for your part, protest, were there no other
But simply the laws o' the land, you could content you,
Nic. Machiavel, and Monsieur Bodin, both
Were of this mind. Then must you learn the use
And handling of your silver fork at meals;
The metal of your glass; (these are main matters
With your Italian;) and to know the hour
When you must eat your melons, and your figs.

PER
Is that a point of state too?

SIR P
Here it is,
For your Venetian, if he see a man
Preposterous in the least, he has him straight;
He has; he strips him. I'll acquaint you, sir,
I now have lived here, 'tis some fourteen months
Within the first week of my landing here,
All took me for a citizen of Venice:
I knew the forms, so well—

PER
[ASIDE.]: And nothing else.

SIR P
I had read Contarene, took me a house,
Dealt with my Jews to furnish it with moveables—
Well, if I could but find one man, one man
To mine own heart, whom I durst trust, I would—

PER
What, what, sir?

SIR P
Make him rich; make him a fortune:
He should not think again. I would command it.

PER
As how?

SIR P
With certain projects that I have;
Which I may not discover.

PER
[ASIDE.]: If I had
But one to wager with, I would lay odds now,
He tells me instantly.

SIR P
One is, and that
I care not greatly who knows, to serve the state
Of Venice with red herrings for three years,
And at a certain rate, from Rotterdam,
Where I have correspendence. There's a letter,
Sent me from one of the states, and to that purpose:
He cannot write his name, but that's his mark.

PER
He's a chandler?

SIR P
No, a cheesemonger.
There are some others too with whom I treat
About the same negociation;
And I will undertake it: for, 'tis thus.
I'll do't with ease, I have cast it all: Your hoy
Carries but three men in her, and a boy;
And she shall make me three returns a year:
So, if there come but one of three, I save,
If two, I can defalk:—but this is now,
If my main project fail.

PER
Then you have others?

SIR P
I should be loth to draw the subtle air
Of such a place, without my thousand aims.
I'll not dissemble, sir: where'er I come,
I love to be considerative; and 'tis true,
I have at my free hours thought upon
Some certain goods unto the state of Venice,
Which I do call "my Cautions;" and, sir, which
I mean, in hope of pension, to propound
To the Great Council, then unto the Forty,
So to the Ten. My means are made already—

PER
By whom?

SIR P
Sir, one that, though his place be obscure,
Yet he can sway, and they will hear him. He's
A commandador.

PER
What! a common serjeant?

SIR P
Sir, such as they are, put it in their mouths,
What they should say, sometimes; as well as greater:
I think I have my notes to shew you—
[SEARCHING HIS POCKETS.]

PER
Good sir.

SIR P
But you shall swear unto me, on your gentry,
Not to anticipate—

PER
I, sir!

SIR P
Nor reveal
A circumstance—My paper is not with me.

PER
O, but you can remember, sir.

SIR P
My first is
Concerning tinder-boxes. You must know,
No family is here, without its box.
Now, sir, it being so portable a thing,
Put case, that you or I were ill affected
Unto the state, sir; with it in our pockets,
Might not I go into the Arsenal,
Or you, come out again, and none the wiser?

PER
Except yourself, sir.

SIR P
Go to, then. I therefore
Advertise to the state, how fit it were,
That none but such as were known patriots,
Sound lovers of their country, should be suffer'd
To enjoy them in their houses; and even those
Seal'd at some office, and at such a bigness
As might not lurk in pockets.

PER
Admirable!

SIR P
My next is, how to enquire, and be resolv'd,
By present demonstration, whether a ship,
Newly arrived from Soria, or from
Any suspected part of all the Levant,
Be guilty of the plague: and where they use
To lie out forty, fifty days, sometimes,
About the Lazaretto, for their trial;
I'll save that charge and loss unto the merchant,
And in an hour clear the doubt.

PER
Indeed, sir!

SIR P
Or—I will lose my labour.

PER
'My faith, that's much.

SIR P
Nay, sir, conceive me. It will cost me in onions,
Some thirty livres—

PER
Which is one pound sterling.

SIR P
Beside my water-works: for this I do, sir.
First, I bring in your ship 'twixt two brick walls;
But those the state shall venture: On the one
I strain me a fair tarpauling, and in that
I stick my onions, cut in halves: the other
Is full of loop-holes, out at which I thrust
The noses of my bellows; and those bellows
I keep, with water-works, in perpetual motion,
Which is the easiest matter of a hundred.
Now, sir, your onion, which doth naturally
Attract the infection, and your bellows blowing
The air upon him, will show, instantly,
By his changed colour, if there be contagion;
Or else remain as fair as at the first.
—Now it is known, 'tis nothing.

PER
You are right, sir.

SIR P
I would I had my note.

PER
'Faith, so would I:
But you have done well for once, sir.

SIR P
Were I false,
Or would be made so, I could shew you reasons
How I could sell this state now, to the Turk;
Spite of their galleys, or their—
[EXAMINING HIS PAPERS.]

PER
Pray you, sir Pol.

SIR P
I have them not about me.

PER
That I fear'd.
They are there, sir.

SIR P
No. This is my diary,
Wherein I note my actions of the day.

PER
Pray you let's see, sir. What is here?
[READS.]
"Notandum,
A rat had gnawn my spur-leathers; notwithstanding,
I put on new, and did go forth: but first
I threw three beans over the threshold. Item,
I went and bought two tooth-picks, whereof one
I burst immediatly, in a discourse
With a Dutch merchant, 'bout ragion del stato.
From him I went and paid a moccinigo,
For piecing my silk stockings; by the way
I cheapen'd sprats; and at St. Mark's I urined."
'Faith, these are politic notes!

SIR P
Sir, I do slip
No action of my life, but thus I quote it.

PER
Believe me, it is wise!

SIR P
Nay, sir, read forth.

[ENTER, AT A DISTANCE, LADY POLITICK-WOULD BE, NANO,
AND TWO WAITING-WOMEN.]

LADY P
Where should this loose knight be, trow?
sure he's housed.

NAN
Why, then he's fast.

LADY P
Ay, he plays both with me.
I pray you, stay. This heat will do more harm
To my complexion, than his heart is worth;
(I do not care to hinder, but to take him.)
[RUBBING HER CHEEKS.]
How it comes off!

1 WOM
My master's yonder.

LADY P
Where?

1 WOM
With a young gentleman.

LADY P
That same's the party;
In man's apparel! 'Pray you, sir, jog my knight:
I'll be tender to his reputation,
However he demerit.

SIR P
[SEEING HER]: My lady!

PER
Where?

SIR P
'Tis she indeed, sir; you shall know her. She is,
Were she not mine, a lady of that merit,
For fashion and behaviour; and, for beauty
I durst compare—

PER
It seems you are not jealous,
That dare commend her.

SIR P
Nay, and for discourse—

PER
Being your wife, she cannot miss that.

SIR P
[INTRODUCING PER.]: Madam,
Here is a gentleman, pray you, use him fairly;
He seems a youth, but he is—

LADY P
None.

SIR P
Yes, one
Has put his face as soon into the world—

LADY P
You mean, as early? but to-day?

SIR P
How's this?

LADY P
Why, in this habit, sir; you apprehend me:—
Well, master Would-be, this doth not become you;
I had thought the odour, sir, of your good name,
Had been more precious to you; that you would not
Have done this dire massacre on your honour;
One of your gravity and rank besides!
But knights, I see, care little for the oath
They make to ladies; chiefly, their own ladies.

SIR P
Now by my spurs, the symbol of my knighthood,—

PER
[ASIDE.]: Lord, how his brain is humbled for an oath!

SIR P
I reach you not.

LADY P
Right, sir, your policy
May bear it through, thus.
[TO PER.]
sir, a word with you.
I would be loth to contest publicly
With any gentlewoman, or to seem
Froward, or violent, as the courtier says;
It comes too near rusticity in a lady,
Which I would shun by all means: and however
I may deserve from master Would-be, yet
T'have one fair gentlewoman thus be made
The unkind instrument to wrong another,
And one she knows not, ay, and to persever;
In my poor judgment, is not warranted
From being a solecism in our sex,
If not in manners.

PER
How is this!

SIR P
Sweet madam,
Come nearer to your aim.

LADY P
Marry, and will, sir.
Since you provoke me with your impudence,
And laughter of your light land-syren here,
Your Sporus, your hermaphrodite—

PER
What's here?
Poetic fury, and historic storms?

SIR P
The gentleman, believe it, is of worth,
And of our nation.

LADY P: Ay, your White-friars nation.
Come, I blush for you, master Would-be, I;
And am asham'd you should have no more forehead,
Than thus to be the patron, or St. George,
To a lewd harlot, a base fricatrice,
A female devil, in a male outside.

SIR P: Nay,
And you be such a one, I must bid adieu
To your delights. The case appears too liquid.

[EXIT.]

LADY P: Ay, you may carry't clear, with your state-face!—
But for your carnival concupiscence,
Who here is fled for liberty of conscience,
From furious persecution of the marshal,
Her will I dis'ple.

PER
This is fine, i'faith!
And do you use this often? Is this part
Of your wit's exercise, 'gainst you have occasion?
Madam—

LADY P
Go to, sir.

PER
Do you hear me, lady?
Why, if your knight have set you to beg shirts,
Or to invite me home, you might have done it
A nearer way, by far:

LADY P
This cannot work you
Out of my snare.

PER
Why, am I in it, then?
Indeed your husband told me you were fair,
And so you are; only your nose inclines,
That side that's next the sun, to the queen-apple.

LADY P
This cannot be endur'd by any patience.

[ENTER MOSCA.]

MOS
What is the matter, madam?

LADY P
If the Senate
Right not my quest in this; I'll protest them
To all the world, no aristocracy.

MOS
What is the injury, lady?

LADY P
Why, the callet
You told me of, here I have ta'en disguised.

MOS
Who? this! what means your ladyship? the creature
I mention'd to you is apprehended now,
Before the senate; you shall see her—

LADY P
Where?

MOS
I'll bring you to her. This young gentleman,
I saw him land this morning at the port.

LADY P
Is't possible! how has my judgment wander'd?
Sir, I must, blushing, say to you, I have err'd;
And plead your pardon.

PER
What, more changes yet!

LADY P
I hope you have not the malice to remember
A gentlewoman's passion. If you stay
In Venice here, please you to use me, sir—

MOS
Will you go, madam?

LADY P
'Pray you, sir, use me. In faith,
The more you see me, the more I shall conceive
You have forgot our quarrel.

[EXEUNT LADY WOULD-BE, MOSCA, NANO, AND WAITING-WOMEN.]

PER
This is rare!
Sir Politick Would-be? no; sir Politick Bawd.
To bring me thus acquainted with his wife!
Well, wise sir Pol, since you have practised thus
Upon my freshman-ship, I'll try your salt-head,
What proof it is against a counter-plot.

[EXIT.]