Or by what accident return'd,) the mother, '
Th' expulsed Apicata, finds them there;
Whom when she saw lie spread on the degrees,
After a world of fury on herself,
Tearing her hair, defacing of her face,
Beating her breasts and womb, kneeling amaz'd,
Crying to heaven, then to them; at last,
Her drowned voice gat up above her woes,
And with such black and bitter execrations
As might affright the gods, and force the sun
Run backward to the east; nay, make the old
Deformed chaos rise again, t' o'erwhelm
Them, us, and all the world, she fills the air,
Upbraids the heavens with their partial dooms,
Defies their tyrannous powers, and demands,
What she, and those poor innocents have trans-
gress'd,
That they must suffer such a share in ven
Now, luck yet send us, and a little wit
Will serve to make our play hit;
According to the palates of the season,
Here is rhyme, not empty of reason.
This we were bid to credit from our poet,
Whose true scope, if you would know it,
In all his poems still hath been this measure,
To mix profit with your pleasure;
And not as some, whose throats their envy failing,
Cry hoarsely, "All he writes is railing:
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And when his plays come forth, think they can flout them,
With saying, he was a year about them.
To this there needs no lie, but this his creature,
Which was two months since no feature:
And though he dares give them five lives to mend it,
"T is known, five weeks fully penn'd it,
From his own hand, without a coadjutor,
Novice, journeyman, or tutor.
Yet thus much I can give you as a token
Of his play's worth, no eggs are broken,
Nor quaking custards with fierce teeth affrighted,
Wherewith your rout are so delighted;
Nor hales he in a gull, old ends reciting,"
To stop gaps in his loose writing ;
With such a deal of monstrous and forc'd action,
As might make Bethlem1 a faction:
The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun
Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram,
Am I, to view thy splendour dark'ning his;
That lying here, amongst my other hoards,
Show'st like a flame by night, or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre.3 O thou son of Sol,
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,
With adoration, thee, and every relic
Of sacred treasure in this blessed room.
Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name,
Title that age which they would have the best;
Thou being the best of things, and far tran-
scending
That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things;
The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot,
Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame,
Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee,
He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise
Mos. And what he will, sir. Riches are in
fortune
A greater good than wisdom is in nature.
Volp. True, my beloved Mosca. Yet I glory More in the cunning purchase of my wealth, 31 Than in the glad possession, since I gain
1 Green vitriol, used in making ink. A room in Volpone's house.
3 Centre of the earth.
4 Gifford and others have noted that in this splendid speech Jonson is indebted to Pindar, Euripides, and Horace.
No common way; I use no trade, no venture;
I wound no earth with ploughsliares, I fat no
beasts
To feed the shambles; have no mills for iron, a
Oil, corn, or men, to grind them into powder;
I blow no subtle glass, expose no ships
To threat'nings of the furrow-faced sea;
I turn no monies in the public bank,
No usure private.
No, sir, nor devour Soft prodigals. You shall ha' some will swal
A melting heir as glibly as your Dutch
Will pills of butter, and ne'er purge for it;
Tear forth the fathers of poor families
Out of their beds, and coffin them alive
In some kind clasping prison, where their bones
May be forthcoming, when the flesh is rotten:
But your sweet nature doth ahhor these
Volp. Right, Mosca ; I do loathe it.
Mos.
And, besides, sir,
You are not like the thresher that doth stand
With a huge flail, watching a heap of corn,
And, hungry, dares not taste the smallest grain,
But feeds on mallows, and such bitter herbs;
Nor like the merchant, who hath fill'd his
vaults
With Romagnia, rich and Candian wines,
Yet drinks the lees of Lombard's vinegar:
You will not lie in straw, whilst moths and
This draws new clients daily to my house,
Women and men of every sex and age,
That bring me presents, send me plate, coin,
jewels,
With hope that when I die (which they expect
Each greedy minute) it shall then return
Tenfold upon them; whilst some, covetous
Above the rest, seek to engross me whole,
And counter-work the one unto the other,
Contend in gifts, as they would seem in love:
All which I suffer, playing with their hopes, 85
And am content to coin 'em into profit,
And look upon their kindness, and take more
And look on that; still bearing them in hand,2
Letting the cherry knock against their lips,
And draw it by their mouths, and back again.-
How now!
Besides ox and ass, camel, mule, goat, and brock,5
In all which it hath spoke, as in the cobbler's cock.6
But I come not here to discourse of that matter,
Or his one, two, or three, or his great oath,
BY QUATER!7.
His musics, his trigon,8 his golden thigh,
Or his telling how elements shift; but I
Would ask, how of late thou hast suffer'd
translation,
And shifted thy coat in these days of reformation.
And. Like one the reform'd, a fool, as you
And how! by that means Thou wert brought to allow of the eating of beans? And. Yes. Nan. But from the mule into whom didst And. Into a very strange beast, by some
By others a precise, pure, illuminate brother Of those devour flesh, and sometimes one
And will drop you forth a libel, or a sanctifi'd lie, Betwixt every spoonful of a nativity-pie.10
Nan. Now quit thee, for heaven, of that profane nation.
And gently report thy next transmigration.
And. To the same that I am.
Now, prithee, sweet soul, in all thy variation, Which body wouldst thou choose to keep up
And. Troth, this I am in: even here would
No, 't is your fool wherewith I am so taken, The only one creature that I can call blessed; For all other forms I have prov'd most distressed.
Nan. Spoke true, as thou wert in Pythagoras still.
This learned opinion we celebrate will,
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