Volpone Or the Fox - LightNovelsOnl.com
You're reading novel online at LightNovelsOnl.com. Please use the follow button to get notifications about your favorite novels and its latest chapters so you can come back anytime and won't miss anything.
LADY P: Is't possible! how has my judgment wander'd?
Sir, I must, blus.h.i.+ng, 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 pa.s.sion. 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-s.h.i.+p, I'll try your salt-head, What proof it is against a counter-plot.
[EXIT.]
SCENE 4.2.
THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE.
ENTER VOLTORE, CORBACCIO, CORVINO, AND MOSCA.
VOLT: Well, now you know the carriage of the business, Your constancy is all that is required Unto the safety of it.
MOS: Is the lie Safely convey'd amongst us? is that sure?
Knows every man his burden?
CORV: Yes.
MOS: Then shrink not.
CORV: But knows the advocate the truth?
MOS: O, sir, By no means; I devised a formal tale, That salv'd your reputation. But be valiant, sir.
CORV: I fear no one but him, that this his pleading Should make him stand for a co-heir-
MOS: Co-halter!
Hang him; we will but use his tongue, his noise, As we do croakers here.
CORV: Ay, what shall he do?
MOS: When we have done, you mean?
CORV: Yes.
MOS: Why, we'll think: Sell him for mummia; he's half dust already.
[TO VOLTORE.]
Do not you smile, to see this buffalo, How he does sport it with his head?
[ASIDE.]
-I should, If all were well and past.
[TO CORBACCIO.]
-Sir, only you Are he that shall enjoy the crop of all, And these not know for whom they toil.
CORB: Ay, peace.
MOS [TURNING TO CORVINO.]: But you shall eat it.
Much! [ASIDE.]
[TO VOLTORE.]
-Wors.h.i.+pful sir, Mercury sit upon your thundering tongue, Or the French Hercules, and make your language As conquering as his club, to beat along, As with a tempest, flat, our adversaries; But much more yours, sir.
VOLT: Here they come, have done.
MOS: I have another witness, if you need, sir, I can produce.
VOLT: Who is it?
MOS: Sir, I have her.
[ENTER AVOCATORI AND TAKE THEIR SEATS, BONARIO, CELIA, NOTARIO, COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, AND OTHER OFFICERS OF JUSTICE.]
1 AVOC: The like of this the senate never heard of.
2 AVOC: 'Twill come most strange to them when we report it.
4 AVOC: The gentlewoman has been ever held Of unreproved name.
3 AVOC: So has the youth.
4 AVOC: The more unnatural part that of his father.
2 AVOC: More of the husband.
1 AVOC: I not know to give His act a name, it is so monstrous!
4 AVOC: But the impostor, he's a thing created To exceed example!
1 AVOC: And all after-times!
2 AVOC: I never heard a true voluptuary Discribed, but him.
3 AVOC: Appear yet those were cited?
NOT: All, but the old magnifico, Volpone.