Enter BONARIOMOSCA: 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.
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