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 CORVINOCORVINO: 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]
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