Volpone cast announced

I'm delighted to announce that the play is now fully cast:

VOLPONE - Michael Wilson
MOSCA - Alex Kapila
VOLTORE - Helen Judge
CORBACCIO - Matthew Lyne
CORVINO - Nick Mansley
CELIA - Stephanie Egbe
BONARIO - Damien Gilchrist
SIR POLITIC WOULD-BE - Richard Watkins
LADY WOULD-BE - Carole Coyne
PEREGRINE - Ali Naushahi
NOTARIO - Ben Amunwa
AVOCATORE 1 - Richard Watkins
AVOCATORE 2 - Estie McLaurin
MERCATORE - Ben Amunwa

Official auditions over...

Thanks to everyone who turned up to audition for Volpone over the past three days. I saw some great performances and have some difficult decisions to make.

Please note that it's not too late to read for a part if you're interested - email me in the next couple of days to arrange an alternative reading.

I will contact all auditionees with news of the casting in the next week.

Welcome - and audition notice

This is the new blog for South London Theatre's June 2007 production of Volpone by Ben Jonson.

In due course, production details will be added to these posts, together with rehearsal dates and any other information as required. For the time being, you can find web versions of the audition pieces in the previous five posts on this blog (click on the number to open the relevant audition piece: 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5). Detailed character descriptions can be found on the SLT Volpone webpage.

Auditions will be held on the following dates at South London Theatre

• Sunday 11th February, 6pm (Rehearsal Room)
  
• Monday 12th February, 8pm (Bell)
  
• Tuesday 13th February, 8pm (Bell)

For further information - or if you would like me to email you copies of the audition pieces in MS Word format, click here. A really detailed breakdown of the characters and scene-by-scene summary of the plot is available (free) from the Spark Notes Volpone page; and a number of sites also provide the full, unedited text, eg Project Gutenberg. Please note, however, that this production of the play will involve substantial cuts to the original text.

Audition Piece 1: Volpone, Mosca, Voltore, Corbaccio

Knocking without

VOLPONE: Who's that? Away! Look, Mosca.

MOSCA: 'Tis Signior Voltore, the advocate;
I know him by his knock.

VOLPONE: Fetch me my gown,
My furs and night-caps; say, my couch is changing,
And let him entertain himself awhile
Without i' the gallery. [Exit MOSCA]
Now, now, my clients
Begin their visitation! Vulture, kite,
Raven, and gorcrow, all my birds of prey,
That think me turning carcase, now they come;
I am not for them yet —

Re-enter MOSCA with the gown, etc

How now! the news?

MOSCA: A piece of plate, sir.

VOLPONE: Of what bigness?

MOSCA: Huge, massy, and antique, with your name inscribed,
And arms engraven.

VOLPONE: Good! and not a fox
Stretch'd on the earth, with fine delusive sleights,
Mocking a gaping crow? ha, Mosca?

MOSCA: Sharp, sir.

VOLPONE: Give me my furs. Why dost thou laugh so, man?

MOSCA: I cannot choose, sir, when I apprehend
What thoughts he has without now, as he walks:
That this might be the last gift he should give;
That this would fetch you; if you died to-day,
And gave him all, what he should be to-morrow;
What large return would come of all his ventures;
How he should worship'd be, and reverenced;
Ride with his furs, and foot-cloths; waited on
By herds of fools, and clients; have clear way
Made for his mule, as letter'd as himself;
Be call'd the great and learned advocate:
And then concludes, there's nought impossible.

VOLPONE: Yes, to be learned, Mosca.

MOSCA: O no: rich implies it.
VOLPONE: My caps, my caps, good Mosca. Fetch him in.

MOSCA: Stay, sir, your ointment for your eyes. You shall live,
Still, to delude these harpies.

VOLPONE: Loving Mosca! [Looking into a glass]
'Tis well: my pillow now, and let him enter.

Exit MOSCA

Now, my fain'd cough, my physic, and my gout,
My apoplexy, palsy, and catarrhs,
Help, with your forced functions, this my posture,
Wherein, this three year, I have milk'd their hopes.
He comes; I hear him —Uh! [Coughing] uh! uh! uh! O —

Enter MOSCA, with VOLTORE, bearing piece of plate; VOLPONE in bed

MOSCA: You still are what you were, sir. Only you,
Of all the rest, are he commands his love,
And you do wisely to preserve it thus,
With early visitation, and kind notes
Of your good meaning to him, which, I know,
Cannot but come most grateful. Patron! sir!
Here's Signior Voltore is come —

VOLPONE [faintly]: What say you?

MOSCA: Sir, Signior Voltore is come this morning
To visit you.

VOLPONE: I thank him.

MOSCA: And hath brought
A piece of antique plate, bought of St Mark,
With which he here presents you.

VOLPONE: He is welcome.
Pray him to come more often.

MOSCA: Yes.

VOLTORE: What says he?

MOSCA: He thanks you, and desires you see him often.

VOLPONE: Mosca.

MOSCA: My patron!

VOLPONE: Bring him near, where is he?
I long to feel his hand.

MOSCA [guiding Volpone’s hand]: The plate is here, sir.

VOLTORE: How fare you, sir?

VOLPONE: I thank you, Signior Voltore;
Where is the plate? mine eyes are bad.

VOLTORE [Putting it into his hand]: I'm sorry,
To see you still thus weak.

MOSCA [Aside]: That he's not weaker.

VOLPONE: I pray you see me often.

VOLTORE: Yes, I shall sir.

VOLPONE: Be not far from me.

MOSCA [to Voltore]: Do you observe that, sir?

VOLPONE: Hearken unto me still; it will concern you.

MOSCA: You are a happy man, sir; know your good.

VOLPONE: I cannot now last long —

MOSCA: You are his heir, sir.

VOLTORE: Am I?

VOLPONE: I feel me going; Uh! uh! uh! uh!
I'm sailing to my port, Uh! uh! uh! uh!
And I am glad I am so near my haven.

MOSCA: Alas, kind gentleman! Well, we must all go —

VOLTORE: But, Mosca —

MOSCA: Age will conquer.

VOLTORE: 'Pray thee hear me:
Am I inscribed his heir for certain?

MOSCA: Are you!
I do beseech you, sir, you will vouchsafe
To write me i’ your family. All my hopes
Depend upon your worship: I am lost,
Except the rising sun do shine on me.

VOLTORE: It shall both shine, and warm thee, Mosca.
But am I sole heir?

MOSCA: Without a partner, sir; confirm'd this morning:
The wax is warm yet, and the ink scarce dry
Upon the parchment.

VOLTORE: Happy, happy, me!
By what good chance, sweet Mosca?

MOSCA: Your desert, sir;
I know no second cause.

VOLTORE: Thy modesty
Is not to know it; well, we shall requite it.

MOSCA: He ever liked your course sir; that first took him.
I oft have heard him say, how he admired
Men of your large profession, that could speak
To every cause, and things mere contraries,
Till they were hoarse again, yet all be law;
That, with most quick agility, could turn,
And re-return; make knots, and undo them;
Give forked counsel; take provoking gold
On either hand, and put it up: these men,
He knew, would thrive with their humility.
And, for his part, he thought he should be blest
To have his heir of such a suffering spirit! —
Loud knocking without
Who's that? one knocks; I would not have you seen, sir.
And yet —pretend you came, and went in haste:
I'll fashion an excuse. —and, gentle sir,
When you do come to swim in golden lard,
Up to the arms in honey, that your chin
Is born up stiff, with fatness of the flood,
Think on your vassal; but remember me:
I have not been your worst of clients.

VOLTORE: Mosca! —

MOSCA: When will you have your inventory brought, sir?
Or see a copy of the will? [Knocking again] Anon!
I will bring them to you, sir. Away, be gone,
Put business in your face.

Exit VOLTORE

VOLPONE [Springing up]: Excellent Mosca!
Come hither, let me kiss thee.

MOSCA: Keep you still, sir.
Here is Corbaccio.

VOLPONE: Set the plate away:
The vulture's gone, and the old raven's come!

MOSCA: Betake you to your silence, and your sleep:
[Sets plate aside] Stand there and multiply. Now, shall we see
A wretch who is indeed more impotent
Than this can feign to be; yet hopes to hop
Over his grave —

Enter CORBACCIO

Signior Corbaccio!
You're very welcome, sir.

CORBACCIO: How does your patron?
MOSCA: Troth, as he did, sir; no amends.

CORBACCIO: What! mends he?

MOSCA: No, sir: he's rather worse.

CORBACCIO: That's well. Where is he?

MOSCA: Upon his couch sir, newly fall'n asleep.

CORBACCIO: Does he sleep well?

MOSCA: No wink, sir, all this night.
Nor yesterday; but slumbers.

CORBACCIO: Good! he should take
Some counsel of physicians: I have brought him
An opiate here, from mine own doctor —

MOSCA: He will not hear of drugs.

CORBACCIO: Why? I myself
Stood by while it was made; saw all the ingredients:
And know, it cannot but most gently work:
My life for his, 'tis but to make him sleep.

VOLPONE [Aside]: Ay, his last sleep, if he would take it.

MOSCA: Sir,
He has no faith in physic. I often have
Heard him protest, that your physician
Should never be his heir.

CORBACCIO: Not I his heir?

MOSCA: Not your physician, sir.

CORBACCIO: O, no, no, no,
I do not mean it. How does his apoplex?
Is that strong on him still?

MOSCA: Most violent.
His speech is broken, and his eyes are set,
His face drawn longer than 'twas wont —

CORBACCIO: How! how!
Stronger then he was wont?

MOSCA: No, sir: his face
Drawn longer than 'twas wont.

CORBACCIO: O, good!

MOSCA: His mouth
Is ever gaping, and his eyelids hang.

CORBACCIO: Good.

MOSCA: A freezing numbness stiffens all his joints,
And makes the colour of his flesh like lead.

CORBACCIO: 'Tis good.

MOSCA: His pulse beats slow, and dull.

CORBACCIO: Good symptoms, still.

MOSCA: And from his brain —

CORBACCIO: I conceive you; good.

MOSCA: Flows a cold sweat, with a continual rheum,
Forth the resolvèd corners of his eyes.

CORBACCIO: Excellent, excellent! sure I shall outlast him:
This makes me young again, a score of years.

MOSCA: I was a coming for you, sir.

CORBACCIO: Has he made his will?
What has he given me?

MOSCA: No, sir.

CORBACCIO: Nothing! ha?

MOSCA: He has not made his will, sir.

CORBACCIO: But what did Voltore, the Lawyer, here?

MOSCA: He smelt a carcass, sir, when he but heard
My master was about his testament;
As I did urge him to it for your good —

CORBACCIO: He came unto him, did he? I thought so.

MOSCA: Yes, and presented him this piece of plate.

CORBACCIO: To be his heir?

MOSCA: I do not know, sir.

CORBACCIO: True: I know it too.

MOSCA [Aside]: By your own scale, sir.

CORBACCIO: Well,
I shall prevent him, yet. See, Mosca, look,
Here, I have brought a bag of bright chequeens,
Will quite weigh down his plate.

MOSCA: All, sir; 'tis your right, your own; no man
Can claim a part: 'tis yours, without a rival,
Decreed by destiny.

CORBACCIO: How, how, good Mosca?

MOSCA: I'll tell you sir. This fit he shall recover.

CORBACCIO: I do conceive you.

MOSCA: And, on first advantage
Of his gain'd sense, will I re-importune him
Unto the making of his testament:
And show him this. [He points to the money]

CORBACCIO: Good, good.

MOSCA: 'Tis better yet, If you will hear, sir.
Now, would I counsel you, make home with speed;
There, frame a will; whereto you shall inscribe
My master your sole heir.

CORBACCIO: And disinherit my son!

MOSCA: O, sir, the better: for that colour
Shall make it much more taking.

CORBACCIO: O, but colour?

MOSCA: This will sir, you shall send it unto me,
where, without thought,
Or least regard, unto your proper issue,
A son so brave, and highly meriting,
The stream of your diverted love hath thrown you
Upon my master, and made him your heir:
He cannot be so stupid, or stone-dead,
But out of conscience, and mere gratitude —

CORBACCIO: He must pronounce me his?

MOSCA: 'Tis true.

CORBACCIO: This plot
Did I think on before. Mine own project.

MOSCA: Which, when he hath done, sir.

CORBACCIO: Publish'd me his heir?

MOSCA: And you so certain to survive him —

CORBACCIO: Ay.

MOSCA: Being so lusty a man —

CORBACCIO: 'Tis true.
MOSCA: Yes, sir —

CORBACCIO: I thought on that too. See, how he should be
The very organ to express my thoughts!

MOSCA: You have not only done yourself a good —

CORBACCIO: But multiplied it on my son.

MOSCA: 'Tis right, sir. You are he,
For whom I labour here.

CORBACCIO: Ay, do, do, do:
I'll straight about it. [Begins to go]

MOSCA [Aside]: Rook go with you, raven!

CORBACCIO: I know thee honest.

MOSCA [Aside]: You do lie, sir!

CORBACCIO: And —

MOSCA: Your knowledge is no better than your ears, sir.

CORBACCIO: I do not doubt, to be a father to thee.

MOSCA: Nor I to gull my brother of his blessing.

CORBACCIO: I may have my youth restored to me, why not?

MOSCA: Your worship is a precious ass!

CORBACCIO: What say'st thou?

MOSCA: I do desire your worship to make haste, sir.

CORBACCIO: 'Tis done, 'tis done, I go. [Exit]

VOLPONE [Leaping up]: O, I shall burst!
Let out my sides, let out my sides —

MOSCA: Contain your flux of laughter, sir: you know this hope
Is such a bait, it covers any hook.

VOLPONE: O, but thy working, and thy placing it!
I cannot hold; good rascal, let me kiss thee:
I never knew thee in so rare a humour.

MOSCA: Alas sir, I but do as I am taught;
Follow your grave instructions; give them words;
Pour oil into their ears, and send them hence.

VOLPONE: 'Tis true, 'tis true. What a rare punishment
Is avarice to itself!

Audition Piece 2: Sir Politic Would-Be, Peregrine, Volpone, Corvino

St Mark’s Square, before CORVINO'S house.

Enter SIR POLITIC WOULD-BE and PEREGRINE.

SIR POLITIC: Sir, to a wise man, all the world's his soil:
It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe,
That must bound me, if my fates call me forth.
Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire
Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,
Nor any disaffection to the state
Where I was bred, and unto which I owe
My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less,
That idle, antique, stale, grey-headed project
Of knowing men's minds, and manners, with Ulysses!
But a peculiar humour of my wife's
Laid for this height of Venice, to observe,
To quote, to learn the language, and so forth —
I hope you travel, sir, with license?

PEREGRINE: Yes.

SIR POLITIC: I dare the safelier converse —How long, sir,
Since you left England?

PEREGRINE: Seven weeks.

SIR POLITIC: So lately!

PEREGRINE [Aside]: This fellow,
Does he gull me, trow? or is gull'd? —Your name, sir.

SIR POLITIC: My name is Politic Would-be.

PEREGRINE [Aside]: O, that speaks him. —
A knight, sir?

SIR POLITIC: A poor knight, sir.

PEREGRINE: Your lady
Lies here in Venice, for intelligence
Of tires, and fashions, and behaviour,
Among the courtesans? The fine Lady Would-be?

SIR POLITIC: Yes, sir

PEREGRINE [Seeing people approach]: Who be these, sir?
Enter MOSCA, disguised, with materials for a scaffold stage; A crowd follows
MOSCA: Under that window, there 't must be. The same.

SIR POLITIC: Fellows, to mount a bank. Did your instructor
In the dear tongues, never discourse to you
Of the Italian mountebanks?

PEREGRINE: Yes, sir.

SIR POLITIC: Why,
Here shall you see one.

PEREGRINE: They are quacksalvers;
Fellows, that live by venting oils and drugs.

SIR POLITIC: Was that the character he gave you of them?

PEREGRINE: As I remember.

SIR POLITIC: Pity his ignorance.
They are the only knowing men of Europe!
Great general scholars, excellent physicians,
Most admired statesmen, profest favourites,
And cabinet counsellors to the greatest princes;
The only languaged men of all the world!

PEREGRINE: And, I have heard, they are most lewd impostors;

SIR POLITIC: Sir, calumnies are answer'd best with silence.
Yourself shall judge. —Who is it mounts, my friends?

MOSCA: Scoto of Mantua, sir.

SIR POLITIC: Is't he?—Here, he comes.

Enter VOLPONE, disguised as a mountebank; with a crowd

SIR POLITIC: See how the people follow him! Note,
Mark but his gesture: I do use to observe
The state he keeps in getting up! [VOLPONE mounts the stage]

PEREGRINE: 'Tis worth it, sir.

VOLPONE: Most noble gentlemen, and my worthy patrons! It may seem strange, that I, your Scoto Mantuano, who was ever wont to fix my bank in face of the public Piazza, near the shelter of the Portico to the Procuratia, should now, after eight months' absence from this illustrious city of Venice, humbly retire myself into an obscure nook of the Piazza.

SIR POLITIC: Did not I now object the same?

PEREGRINE: Peace, sir.

VOLPONE: Let me tell you: I am not, as your Lombard proverb saith, cold on my feet; or content to part with my commodities at a cheaper rate, than I accustomed: look not for it.. No, no, worthy gentlemen; to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of these ground ciarlitani, that spread their cloaks on the pavement, as if they meant to do feats of activity, and then come in lamely, with their mouldy tales out of Boccacio, like stale Tabarine, the fabulist.

SIR POLITIC: Note but his bearing, and contempt of these.

VOLPONE: These turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues, with one poor groat's-worth of unprepared antimony, finely wrapt up in several scartoccios, are able, very well, to kill their twenty a week, and play

SIR POLITIC: Excellent! have you heard better language, sir?

VOLPONE: Well, let them go. And, gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, know, that for this time, our bank, shall be the scene of pleasure and delight; for I have nothing to sell, little or nothing to sell.

SIR POLITIC: I told you, sir, his end.

PEREGRINE: You did so, sir.

VOLPONE: I protest, am not able to make of this precious liquor, so fast as it is fetch'd away from my lodging by gentlemen of your city; strangers of the Terra-firma; worshipful merchants; ay, and senators too: who, ever since my arrival, have etained me to their uses, by their splendidous liberalitiesFor, when a humid flux, or catarrh, by the mutability of air, falls from your head into an arm or shoulder, or any other part; take you a ducat, or your chequin of gold, and apply to the place affected: see what good effect it can work. No, no, 'tis this blessed unguento, this rare extraction, that hath only power to disperse all malignant humours, that proceed either of hot, cold, moist, or windy causes —

PEREGRINE: I would he had put in dry too.

SIR POLITIC: 'Pray you, observe.

VOLPONE: To fortify the most indigest and crude stomach, ay, were it of one, that, through extreme weakness, vomited blood, applying only a warm napkin to the place, after the unction and fricace; —for the vertigine in the head, putting but a drop into your nostrils, likewise behind the ears; a most sovereign and approved remedy. The cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordia, retired nerves, ill vapours of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the strangury, stops a disenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt. [Pointing to his bill and his vial] For, this is the physician, this the medicine; this counsels, this cures; this gives the direction, this works the effect:'Twill cost you eight crowns.

SIR POLITIC: How do you like him, sir?

PEREGRINE: Most strangely, I!

SIR POLITIC: Is not his language rare?

PEREGRINE: But alchemy, I never heard the like.
All this, yet, will not do, eight crowns is high.

VOLPONE: No more. Gentlemen, if I had but time to discourse to you the miraculous effects of this my oil, but gentlemen, honourable gentlemen, I will undertake, by virtue of chemical art, out of the honourable hat that covers your head, to extract the four elements; that is to say, the fire, air, water, and earth, and return you your felt without burn or stain. For, whilst others have been at the Balloo, I have been at my book; and am now past the craggy paths of study, and come to the flowery plains of honour and reputation.

SIR POLITIC: I do assure you, sir, that is his aim.

VOLPONE: But, to our price —

PEREGRINE: And that withal, Sir Pol.

VOLPONE: You all know, honourable gentlemen, I never valued this ampulla, or vial, at less than eight crowns, but for this time, I am content, to be deprived of it for six; six crowns is the price; and less, in courtesy I know you cannot offer me; take it, or leave it, howsoever, both it and I am at your service. Well, I am in a humour at this time to make a present of the small quantity my coffer contains; to the rich, in courtesy, and to the poor for God's sake. Wherefore now mark: I ask'd you six crowns, and six crowns, at other times, you have paid me; you shall not give me six crowns, nor five, nor four, nor three, nor two, nor one; nor half a ducat; no, nor a moccinigo. Sixpence it will cost you.

PEREGRINE: Will you be that heroic spark, sir Pol?
CELIA at a window above, throws down her handkerchief.
O see! the window has prevented you.

VOLPONE: Lady, I kiss your bounty; and for this timely grace you have done your poor Scoto of Mantua, I will return you, over and above my oil, a secret of that high and inestimable nature, shall make you for ever enamour'd on that minute, wherein your eye first descended on so mean, yet not altogether to be despised, an object.

Enter CORVINO

CORVINO: Spite o' the devil, and my shame! come down here;
Come down! No house but mine to make your scene? [He beats away VOLPONE]
What, is my wife your Franciscina, sir?
No windows on the whole Piazza, here,
To make your properties, but mine? but mine?
Heart! ere to-morrow, I shall be new-christen'd,
And call'd the Pantalone di Besogniosi,
About the town. [Exit]

PEREGRINE: What should this mean, sir Pol?

SIR POLITIC: Some trick of state, believe it. I will home.

PEREGRINE: It may be some design on you:

SIR POLITIC: I know not. I'll stand upon my guard.

PEREGRINE: It is your best, sir.

SIR POLITIC: This three weeks, all my advices, all my letters,
They have been intercepted.

PEREGRINE: Indeed, sir! Best have a care.

SIR POLITIC: Nay, so I will.

PEREGRINE: This knight, I may not lose him, for my mirth, till night. [Exeunt]

Audition Piece 3: Corvino, Celia

Enter CORVINO, sword in hand, dragging in CELIA.

CORVINO: Death of mine honour, with the city's fool!
A juggling, tooth-drawing, prating mountebank!
And at a public window! And you smile
Most graciously, and fan your favours forth,
To give your hot spectators satisfaction!
Or were you enamour'd on his copper rings,
His saffron jewel, with the toad-stone in't,
Or his embroider'd suit, with the cope-stitch,
Made of a herse-cloth? or his old tilt-feather?
Or his starch'd beard? Well; you shall have him, yes!
He shall come home, and minister unto you
The fricace for the mother. Or, let me see,
I think you'd rather mount; would you not mount?
Why, if you'll mount, you may; yes truly, you may:
And so you may be seen, down to the foot.
Get you a cittern, lady Vanity,
And be a dealer with the virtuous man;
Make one: I'll but protest myself a cuckold,
And save your dowry.

CELIA: Good sir, have patience.

CORVINO: What couldst thou propose
Less to thyself, than in this heat of wrath
And stung with my dishonour, I should strike
This steel into thee, [taking his sword] with as many stabs,
As thou wert gaz'd upon with goatish eyes?

CELIA: Alas, sir, be appeas'd! I could not think
My being at the window should more now
Move your impatience, than at other times.

CORVINO: No! not to seek and entertain a parley
With a known knave, before a multitude!
You were an actor with your handkerchief;
Which he most sweetly kist in the receipt,
And might, no doubt, return it with a letter,
And point the place where you might meet: your sister's,
Your mother's, or your aunt's might serve the turn.

CELIA: Why, dear sir, when do I make these excuses,
Or ever stir abroad, but to the church?
And that so seldom —

CORVINO: Well, it shall be less;
And thy restraint before was liberty,
To what I now decree: and therefore mark me.
First, I will have this bawdy light damm'd up;
And till't be done, some two or three yards off,
I'll chalk a line: o'er which if thou but chance
To set thy desperate foot; more hell, more horror
More wild remorseless rage shall seize on thee,
Than on a conjurer, that had heedless left
His circle's safety ere his devil was laid.
Then here's a lock which I will hang upon thee;
And, now I think on't, I will keep thee backwards;
Thy lodging shall be backwards; thy walks backwards;
Thy prospect, all be backwards; and no pleasure,
That thou shalt know but backwards: nay, since you force
My honest nature, know, it is your own,
Being too open, makes me use you thus:
Since you will not contain your subtle nostrils
In a sweet room, but they must snuff the air
Of rank and sweaty passengers — [Knocking within.] One knocks.
Away, and be not seen, pain of thy life;
Nor look toward the window: if thou dost —
Nay, stay, hear this —let me not prosper, whore,
But I will make thee an anatomy,
Dissect thee mine own self, and read a lecture
Upon thee to the city, and in public.
Away! [Exit CELIA]

Audition Piece 4: Bonario, Mosca, Lady Would-Be, Volpone

Enter BONARIO

MOSCA: Who's this? Bonario, old Corbaccio's son?
The person I was bound to seek. Fair sir,
You are happily met.

BONARIO: That cannot be, by thee.

MOSCA: Why, sir?

BONARIO: Nay, pray thee know thy way, and leave me:
I would be loth to interchange discourse
With such a mate as thou art

MOSCA: Courteous sir,
Scorn not my poverty.

BONARIO: Not I, by heaven;
But thou shalt give me leave to hate thy baseness.

MOSCA: Baseness? Heaven be good to me! [Weeps]

BONARIO [Aside]: This cannot be a personated passion. —
I was to blame, so to mistake thy nature;
Prithee, forgive me: and speak out thy business.

MOSCA: Sir, it concerns you; and though I may seem,
At first to make a main offence in manners,
And in my gratitude unto my master;
Yet, for the pure love, which I bear all right,
And hatred of the wrong, I must reveal it.
This very hour your father is in purpose
To disinherit you —

BONARIO: How!

MOSCA: And thrust you forth,
As a mere stranger to his blood; 'tis true, sir.

BONARIO: This tale hath lost thee much of the late trust
Thou hadst with me; it is impossible:
I know not how to lend it any thought,
My father should be so unnatural.

MOSCA: It is a confidence that well becomes
Your piety; and form'd, no doubt, it is
From your own simple innocence: which makes
Your wrong more monstrous, and abhorr'd. But, sir,
I now will tell you more. This very minute,
If you shall be but pleas'd to go with me,
I'll bring you,where your ear shall be a witness of the deed;
Hear yourself written bastard; and profest
The common issue of the earth.

BONARIO: I’m mazed!

MOSCA: Sir, if I do it not, draw your just sword,
And score your vengeance on my front and face;
Mark me your villain: you have too much wrong,
And I do suffer for you, sir. My heart
Weeps blood in anguish —

BONARIO: Lead; I follow thee. [Exeunt]

A room in VOLPONE'S house

VOLPONE: The storm comes toward me.

Enter LADY WOULD-BE

LADY WOULD-BE [Going to the couch]: How does my Volp?

VOLPONE: Troubled with noise, I cannot sleep; I dreamt
That a strange fury enter'd, now, my house,
And, with the dreadful tempest of her breath,
Did cleave my roof asunder.

LADY WOULD-BE: Believe me, and I
Had the most fearful dream, could I remember't —

VOLPONE [Aside]: Out on my fate! I have given her the occasion
How to torment me: she will tell me hers.

LADY WOULD-BE: Me thought, the golden mediocrity,
Polite and delicate —

VOLPONE: O, if you do love me,
No more; I sweat, and suffer, at the mention
Of any dream: feel, how I tremble yet.

LADY WOULD-BE: Alas, good soul! the passion of the heart.
Seed-pearl were good now, boil'd with syrup of apples,
Tincture of gold, and coral, citron-pills,
Your elicampane root, myrobalanes —

VOLPONE [Aside]: Ah me, I have ta'en a grass-hopper by the wing!

LADY WOULD-BE: Burnt silk, and amber: you have muscadel
Good in the house —

VOLPONE: You will not drink, and part?

LADY WOULD-BE: No, fear not that.
Shall I, sir, make you a poultice?

VOLPONE: No, no, no;
I am very well: you need prescribe no more.

LADY WOULD-BE: I have a little studied physic; but now,
I'm all for music, save, in the forenoons,
An hour or two for painting. I would have
A lady, indeed, to have all, letters, and arts,
Be able to discourse, to write.

VOLPONE: The poet
As old in time as Plato, and as knowing,
Says that your highest female grace is silence.

LADY WOULD-BE: Which of your poets? Petrarch, or Tasso, or Dante?
Guarini? Ariosto? Aretine?
Cieco di Hadria? I have read them all.

VOLPONE [Aside]: Is every thing a cause to my destruction?

LADY WOULD-BE: I think I have two or three of them about me.

VOLPONE [Aside]: The sun, the sea will sooner both stand still,
Then her eternal tongue; nothing can 'scape it.

LADY WOULD-BE: Here's pastor Fido —

VOLPONE [Aside]: Profess obstinate silence,
That's now my safest.

LADY WOULD-BE: All our English writers,
I mean such as are happy in the Italian,
Will deign to steal out of this author, mainly:
Almost as much, as from Montagnie;
He has so modern and facile a vein,
Fitting the time, and catching the court-ear!
Your Petrarch is more passionate, yet he,
In days of sonetting, trusted them with much:
Dante is hard, and few can understand him.
But, for a desperate wit, there's Aretine;
Only, his pictures are a little obscene —
You mark me not?

VOLPONE [Aside]: Now, the spirit
Of patience help me!

LADY WOULD-BE: Come, in faith, I must
Visit you more a days; and make you well:
Laugh and be lusty.

VOLPONE [Aside]: My good angel save me!

LADY WOULD-BE: There was but one sole man in all the world,
With whom I e'er could sympathise; and he
Would lie you, often, three, four hours together
To hear me speak; and be sometimes so rapt,
As he would answer me quite from the purpose,
Like you, and you are like him, just. I'll discourse,
An't be but only, sir, to bring you asleep,
How we did spend our time and loves together,
For some six years.

VOLPONE: Some power, some fate, some fortune rescue me!

Enter MOSCA.

MOSCA: God save you, madam!

LADY WOULD-BE: Good sir.

VOLPONE: Mosca? welcome,
Welcome to my redemption.

MOSCA: Why, sir?

VOLPONE: Oh,
Rid me of this my torture, quickly, there;
My madam, with the everlasting voice:
The bells, in time of pestilence, ne'er made
Like noise, or were in that perpetual motion!
The Cock-pit comes not near it. All my house,
But now, steam'd like a bath with her thick breath.
For hell's sake, rid her hence.

MOSCA: Has she presented?

VOLPONE: O, I do not care;
I'll take her absence, upon any price,
With any loss.

MOSCA: Madam —

LADY WOULD-BE: I have brought your patron
A toy, a cap here, of mine own work.

MOSCA: 'Tis well.
I had forgot to tell you, I saw your knight,
Where you would little think it. —

LADY WOULD-BE: Where?

MOSCA: Marry,
Where yet, if you make haste, you may apprehend,
Rowing upon the water in a gondole,
With the most cunning courtezan of Venice.

LADY WOULD-BE: Is't true?

MOSCA: Pursue them, and believe your eyes;
Leave me, to make your gift. [Exit LADY WOULD-BE, hastily]
—I knew 'twould take:
For, lightly, they, that use themselves most license,
Are still most jealous.

Audition piece 5: Celia, Volpone, Bonario

VOLPONE lies ailing on his couch; CELIA sits alone with him, having been brought to him by her husband, CORVINO

CELIA: O God, and his good angels! whither, whither,
Is shame fled human breasts? that with such ease,
Men dare put off your honours, and their own?
Is that, which ever was a cause of life,
Now placed beneath the basest circumstance,
And modesty an exile made, for money?

VOLPONE: Ay, in Corvino, and such earth-fed minds,
[Leaps from his couch] That never tasted the true heaven of love.
Assure thee, Celia, he that would sell thee,
Only for hope of gain, and that uncertain,
He would have sold his part of Paradise
For ready money, had he met a cope-man.
Why art thou mazed to see me thus revived?
Rather applaud thy beauty's miracle;
'Tis thy great work: that hath, not now alone,
But sundry times raised me, in several shapes,
And, but this morning, like a mountebank;
To see thee at thy window.

CELIA: Sir!

VOLPONE: Nay, fly me not.
Nor let thy false imagination
That I was bed-rid, make thee think I am so:
Thou shalt not find it. I am, now, as fresh,
As hot, as high, and in as jovial plight,
As when, in that so celebrated scene,
At recitation of our comedy,
For entertainment of the great Valois,
I acted young Antinous

CELIA: Some serene blast me, or dire lightning strike
This my offending face!

VOLPONE: Why droops my Celia?
Thou hast, in place of a base husband, found
A worthy lover: use thy fortune well,
With secrecy and pleasure. See, behold,
What thou art queen of; not in expectation,
As I feed others: but possess'd, and crown'd.
See, here, a rope of pearl; and each, more orient
Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused:
Dissolve and drink them. See, a carbuncle,
May put out both the eyes of our St Mark;
A diamond, would have bought Lollia Paulina,
When she came in like star-light, hid with jewels,
That were the spoils of provinces; take these,
And wear, and lose them: yet remains an ear-ring
To purchase them again, and this whole state.
A gem but worth a private patrimony,
Is nothing: we will eat such at a meal.
The heads of parrots, tongues of nightingales,
The brains of peacocks, and of estriches,
Shall be our food: and, could we get the phoenix,
Though nature lost her kind, she were our dish.

CELIA: Good sir, these things might move a mind affected
With such delights; but I, whose innocence
Is all I can think wealthy, or worth th' enjoying,
And which, once lost, I have nought to lose beyond it,
Cannot be taken with these sensual baits:
If you have conscience —

VOLPONE: 'Tis the beggar's virtue,
If thou hast wisdom, hear me, Celia.
Thy baths shall be the juice of July-flowers,
Spirit of roses, and of violets,
The milk of unicorns, and panthers' breath
Gather'd in bags, and mixt with Cretan wines.
Our drink shall be prepared gold and amber;
Which we will take, until my roof whirl round
With the vertigo.
Whilst we, in changed shapes, act Ovid's tales,
Thou, like Europa now, and I like Jove,
Then I like Mars, and thou like Erycine:
So, of the rest, till we have quite run through,
And wearied all the fables of the gods.
Then will I have thee in more modern forms,
And I will meet thee in as many shapes:
Where we may so transfuse our wandering souls,
Out at our lips, and score up sums of pleasures

CELIA: If you have ears that will be pierc'd —or eyes
That can be open'd —a heart that may be touch'd —
Or any part that yet sounds man about you —
If you have touch of holy saints —or heaven —
Do me the grace to let me 'scape —if not,
Be bountiful and kill me. You do know,
I am a creature, hither ill betray'd,
By one, whose shame I would forget it were:
If you will deign me neither of these graces,
Yet feed your wrath, sir, rather than your lust,
(It is a vice comes nearer manliness,)
And punish that unhappy crime of nature,
Which you miscall my beauty; flay my face,
Or poison it with ointments, for seducing
Your blood to this rebellion. Rub these hands,
With what may cause an eating leprosy,
E'en to my bones and marrow: any thing,
That may disfavour me, save in my honour —
And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down
A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health;
Report, and think you virtuous —

VOLPONE: Think me cold,
Frozen and impotent, and so report me?
That I had Nestor's hernia, thou wouldst think.
I do degenerate, and abuse my nation,
To play with opportunity thus long;
I should have done the act, and then have parley'd.
Yield, or I'll force thee. [He seizes her]

CELIA: O! just God!

VOLPONE: In vain —

BONARIO leaps out from his hiding place

BONARIO: Forbear, foul ravisher, libidinous swine!
Free the forced lady, or thou diest, impostor.
But that I'm loth to snatch thy punishment
Out of the hand of justice, thou shouldst, yet,
Be made the timely sacrifice of vengeance,
Before this altar, and this dross, thy idol. —
Lady, let's quit the place, it is the den
Of villany; fear nought, you have a guard:
And he, ere long, shall meet his just reward.

Exeunt BONARIO and CELIA

VOLPONE: Fall on me, roof, and bury me in ruin!
Become my grave, that wert my shelter! O!
I am unmask'd, unspirited, undone,
Betray'd to beggary, to infamy!