SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
Frances Nicol Teague
NEAR THE END OF VOLPONE, Volpone turns on Corvino and says to him:
Methinks
Yet you, … the fine bird Corvino,
That have such moral emblems on your name,
Should not have sung your shame and dropped your cheese,
To let the Fox laugh at your emptiness. (V.viii.9–14) 1
This speech alludes to one of Aesop’s fables, but it also refers to images in
emblem books. Emblems, combining the visual and the verbal, offer a resource
for this play. In this instance, Gilles Corozet’s Hecatomgraphie (1542) has as its
“eleventh fable that of the fox and the crow with its motto/title ‘Ne croire la
louange des flateurs,’ and its woodcut of the crow dropping the cheese into the
fox’s mouth.” 2 Clearly, Volpone refers to this woodcut or one similar to it using
the fable from Aesop (see Figure 1). The lines may also recall that one of the
play’s sources is beast lore. D. A. Scheve explains that:
The episode of the fox feigning death is set forth in detail in a book Jonson
had in his own library,’ Conrad Gesner’s Historia Animahum (1557):
When she [the fox] sees the flocks of birds flying about, she lies prone
on the ground and at the same time shuts her eyes, and places her snout
on the ground, and holds her breath, and at once assumes the
appearance and likeness of one sleeping or rather dead. But when the
birds see her thus stretched out upon the ground, thinking her dead,
they glide down in flocks, and sitting on her, they mock her, as it were.
But the fox devours them with her gaping and threatening mouth as
1
All quotations from Volpone are taken from Brian Parker’s Revels edition, although I have also
checked the text in C. H. Herford, Percy and Evelyn Simpson, Ben Jonson (Oxford, 1925–52), v. V,
11–137.
2
Laurence Grove, Text/Image Mosaics in French Culture: Emblems and Comic Strips (Aldershot,
2005), 36.
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SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
113
they approach her snout. 3
This episode of the fox feigning death is not in an emblem, but as Robert Evans
has pointed out, an emblem may serve as an analogue. Alciatus’ emblem no.
159, for instance, carries the motto
“Opulenti haereditas” (“The inheritance
of a rich man”). The accompanying
picture shows a raven and vulture
pecking at a naked corpse identified as
Patroclus, the Greek warrior. The
epigram explains that while the Trojans
took Patroclus’ belongings, the Greeks
were left with his body, and the poem
moralizes the event by noting that “This
little story is acted out when a rich man
dies.” The poem goes on to identify the
scavenging birds as a raven (coruis) and
vulture (vultur), analogues to Jonson’s
Corvino and Voltore. 4
Volpone is, of course, set in Venice,
a city that might be said to be the
crossroads of the eastern and western
Mediterranean, given its strategic
Figure 1. Wenceslas Hollar, etching “Fox
position at the head of the Adriatic Sea,
and Crow” from John Ogilby, The Fables
as well as its commercial ties to western
of Aesop, Paraphras’d in Verse and
Europe and to Constantinople. It was in
Adorn’d with Sculpture (London, 1665),
Venice that Aldus first published the
337; courtesy of WikiMedia Commons.
Hieroglyphica in 1505, a work that
helped initiate the growing popularity of emblem books across Europe, and in
1546, Aldus would also publish a Venetian edition of Alciati’s popular emblem
book, which went through well over 100 editions. 5 Such emblems constituted an
important part of the mental world of Europe, helping to provide a common base
of references across national boundaries, growing out of shared classical
references, proverbs and mottoes, and visual associations. The Venetian
characters of Volpone look at the world with that common base of reference, and
3
D. A. Scheve, “Jonson’s Volpone and Traditional Fox Lore,” RES, n.s. 1 (1950), 242–4.
Robert C. Evans, “Jonson and the Emblematic Tradition: Ralegh, Brant, the Poems, The Alchemist,
and Volpone, Comparative Drama 29 (1995), 130.
5
Henry Green, “Andreae Alciati, Emblematum Fontes Quatuor; Namely an Account of the Original
Collection, Made at Milan, 1522, and Photolith Facsimiles of the Editions, Augsburg 1531, Paris
1534, and Venice 1546” (London, 1870).
4
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Jonson expected his London audience to share it as well. Yet a seventeenthcentury Venetian, or any cultured person in the Mediterranean, would have
recognized the image of the foolish crow, even if not understanding the English
play that refers to it. Like the magnificence of Venetian art, emblem books and
staged action formed a visual culture that persisted across national and linguistic
boundaries, tying the Mediterranean to the
European world at large.
Other emblems also lie behind the play. 6
In one a fox, traditionally crafty, is beguiled by
love, much as Volpone loses sight—and
control—of his confidence trick because of his
desire for Celia. In another a fox gazes at an
actor’s mask and marvels at the face with no
mind (see Figure 2); Volpone constantly
underscores the difference between Volpone’s
“wolfish nature” and the mask he presents to
Figure 2.
Andrea Alciati,
the world. Given that “wolvish” nature, it is
Emblematum liber (Augustae
perhaps pertinent that a traditional allegory for
Vindelicorum, 1531), pl. 189;
Avarice depicts a woman with a wolf behind
courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
her, while that for Cunning (Astuzia
Ingannevole) shows a woman wearing fox fur. The subplot of Volpone may
invert an emblem, as Evans notes:
Whitney’s emblem on the “virtues of wives” describes and depicts
Modesty as a woman with her finger at her lips (symbolizing silence)
who stands on the back of a tortoise (93b). Anyone who recalled this
emblem would have taken extra delight in Lady Politick Would-be,
who is anything but modest or silent, and whose hen-pecked husband
(in a memorable moment) climbs under a tortoise shell. In Whitney the
tortoise symbolizes a wife who stays at home (not a virtue practiced by
Lady Would-be), so that if Jonson had this emblem at all in mind, he
gives the woman-on-a-tortoise image a nicely ironic twist. 7
6
Evans mentions a number of other relevant emblems in Whitney. Online databases are wonderful
tools for examining emblem books, making it clear how often a particular emblem might appear in
different books. On 26 August 2008 I found the fox beguiled by love through the University of
Illinois’ Open Emblem Portal <http://media.library.uiuc.edutprojects/oebp/>; it occurs in Otto
Vaenius, Amorum Emblemata as emblem 118. The fox holding a mask is from Alciato, Book of
Emblems, emblem 189 <http://wwvv.mun.ca/alciatate189.html>. Avarice and Cunning occur in
Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia (Perugia, 1764), v. 1, 177, 179; Evans, 130. Allen Gilbert’s work is also
important in understanding Jonson’s use of allegorical figures, and I want to acknowledge this work
as the one that first introduced me to that aspect of Jonson’s technique.
7
Evans, 129.
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
115
Finally, Brian Parker has unearthed more information about fox lore and
illustrations of foxes, especially the way the play employs material from
Reynard tales. Parker remarks that “In fact, as one examines the texts and
iconography of the many Reynard versions, it becomes clear that certain
incidents were much more popular than others, both to writers and to visual
artists.” 8 It seems an especially astute point to make about this particular play, a
work that depends so heavily on the visual effect to makes its point.
In this essay I want to consider how one looks at Volpone, or more
particularly how one looks at stage bodies and objects. 9 As the fox lying on the
ground must be seen if it is to capture its dinner, so too the play must be seen in
order to capture its audience. If a reader studies Volpone as a text alone, that
experience is incomplete. Like the emblem that Volpone mentions, one must
have the picture as well as the words. Ben Jonson was well aware of the
importance of both the visual and the verbal. As he remarks in Timber, or,
Discoveries, “Whosoever loves not picture, is injurious to truth, and all the
wisdom of poetry.” 10 While I would not want to suggest that one is “injurious to
… the wisdome” of Volpone unless viewing it as exclusively emblematic, one
must find a way of including the stage pictures in the play as well as the
language. Volpone’s use of stage furniture is important, as is his dizzying
rhetoric. Sir Politic Would-be’s logorrhea matters, but so does his tortoise shell.
David Bergeron notes one such moment:
When Mosca in Volpone informs Lady Would-be that her husband is
ostensibly cavorting with “the most cunning courtesan in Venice”
(III.v.20), she makes a puzzling request. She determines to find Sir
Politic, and she asks of Mosca: “I pray you, lend me your dwarf.” He
acquiesces: “I pray you, take him” (29). And off she goes, dwarf in
hand. This whole incident, such a small, seemingly insignificant matter,
we pass over in the text as we read; editors of the text, including
Herford and Simpson in their copiously documented edition, apparently
find it unworthy of comment. But in a report on the Royal Shakespeare
Company’s production of Volpone in Stratford in Fall 1983, Tony
Howard notes that Lady Would-be’s “lend me your dwarf” evoked
applause from the audience. I think that the episode comes straight out
of The Faerie Queene or similar romances; and such a possible
borrowing suggests to me that elements of romance exist in Volpone,
8
Brian Parker, “Volpone and Reynard the Fox,” Renaissance Drama, n.s. 7 (1976), 10–11. Richard
Dutton has considered the fox lore as well, using it to argue for reading the play as a political satire.
9
In Appendix A, I have listed all details about costume and appearance in the play’s text; in appendix
B, I give a list of properties.
10
Timber, or, Discoveries 1537, in Ben Jonson, ed. Ian Donaldson (Oxford, 1985), 561.
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especially in the sub-plot, the Sir Politic and Lady Would-be action. 11
As Bergeron’s instance suggests, one’s understanding of a play demands
consideration of the stage picture as well as the poetry: in performance a
moment overlooked in reading can draw applause. Reading Volpone without a
sense of how the actors look as they move about or what they hold as they speak
is to miss some of Jonson’s finest work as a dramatist.
The way that the sub-plot connects to the main plot offers a good example
of how Jonson uses visual effects. On at least two occasions, parallel staging
reinforces the relationship between the main and sub-plots. In Act I, each of the
legacy hunters—Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino—follows the same patterned
stage blocking while he visits Volpone. Each enters and chats with Mosca, each
comes forward to present Volpone with a gift (a piece of antique plate, a bag of
bright chequins, a pearl), and each moves away from the bed for a second chat
with Mosca about his prospects before making his exit. In Act III, Lady Politic
Would-be follows a similar pattern in her blocking. Her visit also begins with a
conversation, but she speaks with the dwarf Nano, not the clever second-incommand Mosca. Moreover, she summons her women to help her adjust her
hair, in a ludicrous display of vanity that elicits sotto voce comments from both
Volpone and Nano. When this business is done, she moves forward to greet the
invalid like the other would-be heirs, but all she gives him is a stream of words.
Next Mosca enters, so she moves away and consults with him. Her material
present must wait until she leaves. While she bids Mosca farewell, she seeks to
improve her chances by handing over not jewels or money or plate, but a
homemade cap. Lady Politic Would-be looks like a fool, but she also makes the
others look like fools, for her ridiculous visit gains some of its humor from its
visual parody of the elaborate way the other legacy hunters woo a false invalid.
The parallel staging underscores the parallel absurdity of the actions, as well as
the similar characters of the anxious sickroom visitors.
The scenes in which Sir Politic Would-be assumes his tortoise shell (V.iv)
and Volpone a Commendatore’s costume also use parallel staging (V.v). At the
beginning of each episode, a cozener enters with some companions. In the first
instance, the trickster is Peregrine and three merchants, and in the second,
Volpone with Mosca. He turns to his company to ask if the disguise he wears is
effective. “Am I enough disguised?” asks Peregrine, while Volpone asks, “Am I
then like him?” (V.iv.1; V.v.1). Once reassured, he parts from them and seeks
out a fool to gull.
This vignette of a character seeking his companion’s assistance recurs later
in the action of both main and sub-plots. When Sir Politic Would-be produces
11
David Bergeron, “‘Lend me your dwarf’: Romance in Volpone,” Medieval and Renaissance Drama
in England 3 (1986), 99–100.
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
117
the tortoise disguise, he must ask Peregrine to help him into it:
Marry, it is, sir, of a tortoise-shell,
Fitted for these extremities. Pray you, sir, help me.
Here I’ve a place, sir, to put back my legs;
Please you to lay it on, sir. With this cap
And my black gloves, I’ll lie, sir, like a tortoise
Till they are gone (V.v.54–9).
Peregrine further aids his victim by pretending that Sir Politic Would-be actually
is a tortoise, a pretense that extends the fool’s humiliation. Voltore must disguise
himself, taking on the role of a man possessed by a demon. Once again, the
victim seeks the predator’s help. In parallel action, Volpone first reassures
Voltore that his pretense of friendship for the wealthy invalid may still succeed,
then directs the performance of his gull:
Sir, you may redeem it.
They said you were possessed: fall down, and seem so.
I’ll help to make it good. Voltore falls.
God bless the man!
[Aside to Voltore] Stop your wind hard, and swell.
[Aloud] See, see, see, see!
He vomits crooked pins! His eyes are set
Like a dead hare’s hung in a poulter’s shop!
His mouth’s running away! (V.xii. 21–7)
The fool believes the predator in each case. Both Sir Politic Would and Voltore
follow directions, only to be unmasked in their true nature before a group on
stage. Once the fools have been revealed, both Peregrine and Volpone choose to
throw off their disguises. The uncasing is Peregrine’s triumph, but Volpone’s
downfall, and as a result, Volpone ends up placed with the fools, Sir Politic
Would-be and Voltore. The parallel situations reinforce what the parallel staging
suggests: the fox, vulture, and parrot are all foolish, for in prison Volpone will
be as isolated as Voltore in exile and as cramped and confined as Sir Politic
Would-be in his tortoise shell. Greed leads all three to abandon their disguises,
although Sir Politic Would-be’s greedy plots involve tinder-boxes and onions,
while Voltore and Volpone’s plans revolve around a death bed. Moreover the
parallel staging underscores the play’s insistence that all are fools and
establishes that a fool will reveal himself in every disguise. The only difference
is the nature of the fool’s greed since the outcome is commensurate with the
degree of wickedness: Peregrine shows no greed and goes unpunished, Sir
Politic Would-be shows little and faces humiliation, but Voltore and Volpone
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engage in crimes and are punished harshly. Nevertheless, in this play, “Fools,
they are the only nation,” and even Peregrine seems foolish in his over-reaction
to Sir Politic Would-be’s social ineptitude.
Parallel staging is not the only visual technique that Jonson uses to show the
nature of greed in this play. Presentational imagery is also important. By
presentational imagery I mean material objects that reinforce or supplement
linguistic imagery. The most obvious example is Jonson’s presentational
imagery of wealth. A series of properties are displays of wealth, and in the first
scene a piece of stage furniture,
Volpone’s shrine, is visually associated
with them (see Figure 3). The play begins
with Volpone’s morning prayer, his
matins to gold. Lest anyone mistake this
speech for a hyperbolic exercise, the
words are implicitly guiding the stage
action. Volpone begins: “Good morning
to the day; and next, my gold! / Open the
shrine that I may see my saint” (I.i.1–2).
Mosca then opens the shrine, revealing to
Volpone and to the audience that it is
filled with glittering treasure. Volpone
now expresses the nature of his worship:
“Hail, the world’s soul, and mine” and
after developing this theme moves to
Figure 3. This illustration shows Volpone
praying at his shrine. Vincent O’Sullivan,
“kiss / with adoration, thee, and every
ed., Ben Jonson’s Volpone (London,
relic / Of sacred treasure in this blessèd
1898), frontispiece by Aubrey Beardsley;
room” (I.i. 3, 11–13). After this opening
courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
exhortation and worship, Volpone moves
to a confession of the ways that are unsuitable for a trickster to obtain gold, a
confession that is repeatedly interrupted by Mosca in a parody of the responsory
prayers of the morning service. Only after a display of personal wealth, by
producing coins to purchase Mosca’s silence, can Volpone conclude his matins
service with an anthem to gold.
Nor does this visual and verbal association of wealth and worship stop after
the first scene. All the legacy hunters display gold and jewels to be placed in the
shrine. They are drawn like pilgrims to the shrine of gold, only to have their
pilgrimage end in Act V, when a final display of riches occurs as Mosca mocks
the would-be heirs with his inventory. Volpone’s prayer and the legacy-hunter’s
pilgrimage are counterpointed by a chilling display in Act III. Once more the
shrine has prominence. Volpone opens it to show Celia his wealth:
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
119
See, behold
What thou art queen of not in expectation,
As I feed others, but possessed and crowned.
See, here, a rope of pearl, and each more orient
Than that the brave Egyptian queen caroused;
Dissolve and drink ‘em. 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 starlight, hid with jewels
That were the spoils of provinces; take these,
And wear, and lose ’em; yet remains an earring
To purchase them again, and this whole state (III.vii.187–98).
The stage action that accompanies this speech is plain: as Volpone pulls out each
piece he displays it, both to Celia and to the audience, to underscore his belief
that wealth will purchase her sexual favors. Each time she rejects the offered
prop, and she finally responds in plain language that contrasts with his sensual
and seductive verse, pleading with him to release her from the room. The last of
her responses concludes with what appears to be another implicit description of
what she is doing:
And I will kneel to you, pray for you, pay down
A thousand hourly vows, sir, for your health—
Report, and think you virtuous (III.vii.257–9).
If I am correct, she sinks to her knees before him to pray for release, the play’s
one true Christian praying before the priest and shrine of gold. In this spectacle,
the audience hears and sees that all of Venice worships gold.
While the shrine for the worship of gold looms behind the action in
Volpone’s bedroom, another piece of stage furniture, the invalid’s bed, quite
literally, holds the center of the stage. 12 And just as the characters repeatedly
display wealth, they also display medicines throughout the play: Volpone’s
ointment to blear his eyes, Corbaccio’s opiate for Volpone’s eternal rest, the
mountebank’s all-serving elixir, and the bowl of wine that restores Volpone after
his first trial. Each of these medicinal props is false in some way. The ointment
lends only the appearance of illness, while Corbaccio seeks to poison, not cure
Volpone. The false mountebank, Volpone in disguise, offers the elixir to the
12
The stage bed was probably little more than a rough platform draped in the requisite covers. It is
tempting to speculate that, stripped of its covers, it became the “bank” for the false Scoto of Manuta.
Certainly in this metatheatrical play, the bed (like the bank) is always a kind of stage for Volpone’s
performance.
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crowd, but it is clearly worthless, serving as an excuse to get him a glimpse of
Celia. The bowl of wine that Volpone drinks does not return him to his usual
state, but makes him reckless and initiates his disastrous device “of rare,
ingenious knavery,” his pretence of death. The cures are all as false as is the
shrine’s golden deity.
This pattern of presentational imagery also serves to undercut any sympathy
that the audience may feel for Volpone by creating a visual parallel between his
spiritual ills and the repulsive Corbaccio’s physical ills. In the play, Volpone
pretends to be a dying man anxious to settle his earthly estate, while Corbaccio
is a dying man, who refuses to consider his heavenly estate. These two
characters engage in similar actions throughout the play, most of which use a
display in which Corbaccio’s behavior mirrors Volpone’s. As the legacy hunters
begin to arrive, Volpone needs ointment for his eyes (I.ii.115) to help him
achieve the invalid appearance that will win their money. Two scenes later,
Corbaccio enters with a different medicine, ostensibly to cure, but actually to
poison, Volpone and win the fox’s money. In Act IV, Volpone must be carried
into court on a litter, while in Act V, Corbaccio must be carried into Volpone’s
house in a sedan chair. Both men have and display their wills. Volpone’s will is
blank, suggesting his alienation from the rest of Venetian society. Corbaccio’s
will has his son’s name crossed out and Volpone’s name substituted for it,
suggesting the old man’s greed trumps familial love. Volpone keeps his will
locked in a chest in his bedroom, while Corbaccio carries his will to Volpone’s
house. The relationship between the two is sketched in that detail: Volpone
guards even a blank will, and Corbaccio is eagerly subservient. At the end of the
play, Volpone is sentenced “to lie in prison, cramped with irons, / Till thou be
sick and lame indeed” (V.xii.123–4), while Corbaccio “shalt be learned to die
well” in a monastery. Both are isolated from Venetian society; both face a future
in which they will face pain and contemplate mortality.
The displays of illness and medicine throughout the play not only serve as
devices for characterization and suggest the play’s ethical concerns, but they
also operate structurally. Each display prepares the audience for the next, serving
to unify the plot. Because Volpone has played the invalid for Corvino in Act I,
he must disguise himself as a mountebank in Act II. Because Corvino thinks the
mountebank and his displayed elixir have saved Volpone from death, he is
willing to prostitute his wife as a final cure in Act III. Because Volpone leaves
his role as invalid to seduce Celia in Act IV, he must return to it in Act IV to
save himself by being carried into the courtroom. That display exhausts him as
Act V begins and he declares:
Well, I am here, and all this brunt is passed.
I ne’er was in dislike with my disguise
Till this fled moment. Here ’twas good, in private;
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
121
But in your public—cave whilst I breathe.
’Fore God, my left leg ’gan to have the cramp,
And I appre’nded straight away some power had struck me
With a dead palsy.
Give me a bowl of lusty wine to fright
This humour from my heart. Hum, hum, hum!
He drinks.
’Tis almost gone already; I shall conquer.
Any device, now, of rare, ingenious knavery
That would possess me with a violent laughter
Would make me up again. So, so, so, so. Drinks again.
This heat is life; ’tis blood by this time (V.i.2–16).
The bowl of wine is medicinal, but it is also intoxicating, leading him to falsify
his death in Act V, which in turn leads to his sentence that will bring real
physical suffering. In each incident, Volpone is driven into a new role because of
his old roles, and each role is connected with illness.
The techniques of showing illness, through props and through stage action,
are closely connected to another aspect of the play: its metatheatricality. 13 The
characters in the play play a variety of roles, and the things around them have
multiple identities as well. Props and costumes serve dual functions to advance
the plot of the play Volpone, as well as the plays within Volpone. Mosca’s use of
the account books and the blank will in Act V offers a good illustration. These
props both provide Mosca with stage business in his performance for his hidden
audience of Volpone, and they help stir up the ire of the disappointed legacy
hunters, whose comments grow more heated each time that Mosca ignores them
to continue consulting the documents. The props have even greater importance
in the action of the play, because they are essential tools in Mosca’s plot to
unseat his powerful master. Furthermore the catalogue of wealth that Mosca
reads out from the inventory reminds the audience of the enormous riches at
stake in the final trial.
The inventory is only one example of the written documents that the
characters in the play use in their role playing. All of the books, letters, and
notes are as false as the medicines or the god of the play. The first specified
appearance of a piece of paper comes in Nano’s performance of the fool’s
entertainment when the dwarf consults a charta giving a false genealogy for
Androgyno (I.ii.14). Soon after, Volpone plays the role of mountebank and
consults a bill that falsely ascribes curative properties to his elixir. Sir and Lady
Politic Would-be try to play the roles of fashionable and sophisticated citizens of
the world, but Sir Politic Would-be’s notes and diaries are not the potent
13
Kernan writes brilliantly of this aspect in the introduction to his edition.
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documents he claims that they are. The copy of Guarini’s Il Pastor Fido that
Lady Politic Would-be produces is not a sign of her good taste, but of her
boorishness, and it concerns a laughably ideal notion of romantic love compared
to the reality of lust in the world of the play. Like Corbaccio’s will, Volpone’s
will and account-books bear no relationship to reality, but are devices to
expedite deceit. Finally, Voltore’s notes, which he hands over to the Avocatori
(V.xi.33), are his statement of what he believes to be the true state of things. But
his statement is inaccurate, for he thinks Volpone was innocent and is dead; even
though Voltore wants to tell the truth, he cannot.
Everyone in the play wants to know the truth of matters for his own ends,
and each thinks that the truth can be written down. All are wrong. Language fails
in the play, despite the splendid speeches, and only in the closing moments of
Act V does enough information come together for anyone to give an account of
events remotely resembling the truth. The characters have lost the ability to
speak truly, just as they have lost their identities in their changing roles.
The play’s characters often change their appearances to assume other roles,
so each change of costume (and often of make-up), may remind the audience
that they are in a theater watching a performance. Volpone changes one costume
for another five times in the course of the play. He begins as a blear-eyed invalid
wrapped in furs (perhaps fox furs? I.i.97, 114), then changes to a mountebank
carrying a bill and glass of elixir (II.ii.114), returns to his invalid’s costume, next
puts on the uniform of a Commendatore, and concludes by “uncasing.” Mosca
changes costumes three times as he moves from the role of servant, to an heir
wearing a gown and cap (V.ii.69), to the dress of a Clarissimo (V.v.1). Sir
Politic Would-be and Peregrine wear two costumes, while Lady Politic Wouldbe’s visit to the invalid includes her extended hair and make-up session. Voltore
may wear his attorney’s robe outside as well as inside the courtroom; in any
case, the long black robe would underscore his vulture’s identity. Even those
characters who make no costume change dissemble their true feelings to act out
behavior fitted to the situation. (Celia is, as always, an exception, although the
boy’s body beneath the woman’s dress makes that exception one more of degree
than kind.) The lives of the play’s characters are the lives of actors who cannot
return to the original parts they were assigned: they constantly shift and assume
a new role with each change of situation. One recalls what Jonson says in
Timber, or Discoveries:
De vita human
I have considered our whole life is like a play: wherein every man,
forgetful of himself, is in travail with expression of another. Nay, we so
insist in imitating others, as we cannot, when it is necessary, return to
ourselves: like children that imitate the vice of stammerers so long, till
at last they become such, and make the habit to another nature, as it is
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
123
never forgotten. (11.1105–11)
The characters of Volpone have turned their habit of performing into their
nature, even in the play’s epilogue when the uncased fox reveals himself to be an
actor who wants the audience to “clap your hands” (Epi. 6).
Volpone shows us the world as a stage. Its hypocritical characters are actors,
by choice and by necessity, performing for each other and caught within their
roles. The chief director is Mosca. In the beginning scenes he helps Volpone put
on his costume and make-up, sets the scene, and offers last-minute instructions
on the performance, Later he must caution the newly deceased invalid, or the
actor’s untimely noise will ruin the play-within-the-play. Again when Volpone
plays the mountebank or the Commendatore, Mosca must help him get into his
costume and set up the stage. Mosca also directs the zanies’ performance and the
witnesses’ testimony in the first trial scene. But the effect of the direction is to
block Volpone from his initial identity—a wealthy confidence trickster—as well
as the first role he assumes—the dying man. At play’s end, Volpone can return
to neither, anymore than Corbaccio can ever again act as a father, Voltore a
lawyer, or Corvino a husband. Clearly Mosca has more power than anyone in the
play, although when he becomes an actor and assumes a role himself he loses
that power. Mosca is not the sole director: Volpone directs Voltore’s
performance as a possessed man, and Peregrine directs Sir Politic Would-be’s
turn as a tortoise. Unless one understands the play’s metatheatricality, visual as
well as verbal, one risks ignoring this central conception of the power
relationship between a director and an actor.
As masque-maker and playwright, Jonson was well aware of how the play’s
visual effects work. The appearance of Volpone has as much importance to an
understanding of the work as does an analysis of its linguistic imagery or a
consideration of the sources, literary conventions, or social context. Jonson did
not provide details about costumes haphazardly, or shape the tagging of a scene
unwittingly, or specify the use of a property without a reason. He wrote for an
audience that would watch the play as well as for an audience that would read it.
We can see his awareness of both audiences signaled throughout the play,
whether he gives a marginal explanation of his allusion to “the strange, poetical
girdle” (V.ii.102) or when he tells the actor playing Corvino to beat away the
mountebank (II.iii.1). In a discussion of the play, Jonas Barish has said that “One
may protest against a view of drama which criticizes a play exclusively in term
of physical action.” 14 Surely the obverse of this statement is equally true, and
one may also protest a view of drama that ignores physical action, that reads
speeches but never looks at things. As John Marston pointed out,
14
Jonas Barish, “The Double Plot in Volpone,” Ben Jonson, ed. Jonas Barish (Englewood Cliffs,
1963), 93.
124
FRANCES NICOL TEAGUE
Comedies are writ to be spoken, not read:
Remember the life of these things consists in action …. 15
Those who lived in Europe when Jonson wrote had to contend with differences
in spoken languages, but as a play like Volpone makes plain, they shared a visual
culture to which we need to attend, in emblem books and in playhouses.
APPENDIX A
DETAILS ABOUT COSTUME AND APPEARANCE
VOLPONE. In Act I, he puts on a gown, furs, and caps (ii.84–5) and tips Mosca
from his purse (i.67). In II.ii he changes to a mountebank’s costume, but
Corvino’s description (II.v.11–17) cannot be taken very seriously. When
Volpone discards the mountebank’s costume, he mentions that his beard and
eyebrows are a distinctive color (II.iv.30); if his hair is red, which seems likely,
the connection to a fox is heightened. He changes back to his invalid’s gown for
Acts III and IV, but abandons it when he returns from the first trial scene, since
it is lying about for Mosca to don at V.ii.76. His final costume is assumed in V.v
when the opening stage direction reveals he is dressed as a commendatore; he
wears a red cap with two golden badges on it (V.viii.16–17).
MOSCA. He has fewer costume changes than Volpone. He puts on Volpone’s
gown at V.ii.76 and a cap at V.ii.81, then changes to the habit of a Clarissimo
according to the opening stage direction in V.v. When he wears the Clarissimo’s
clothing, he is dressed similarly to Corbaccio and Corvino, judging from
Corbaccio’s comment at V.viii.1.
VOLTORE. As a lawyer, he wears a long black Advocate’s robe. In I.ii.105
Mosca mentions his furs and footcloths.
CORBACCIO AND CORVINO. Both men wear a Clarissimo’s gown (V.viii.1),
although Mosca’s comment about Corvino’s spruce appearance (I.iv.161) may
mean he is somewhat more elegant than Corbaccio. Corbaccio gives Mosca
money from his purse (IV.vi.86), but his spectacles, toothlessness, and cane are
mocked at V.i.63, 68.
15
John Marston, “To My Equal Reader,” The Fawn, ed. Gerald A. Smith (Lincoln, 1965).
SEEING TO THINGS IN VOLPONE
125
PEREGRINE. He changes his clothing to deceive Sir Politic Would-be at V.iv.1.
SIR POLITIC WOULD-BE. He changes from the “grave and serious” garb that he
recommends to Peregrine (IV.i.12) and puts on a tortoise shell, cap, black
gloves, and garters (V.iv.54, 56, 57, 73).
LADY POLITIC WOULD-BE. The actor wears a curly wig and heavy make-up
(III.iv.10, 37, IV.ii.6). Her dress has a band to adjust at III.iv.3–4. In the visit to
Volpone’s sick room, she carries a purse or bag to hold her books and the cap
she has made for him.
BONARIO AND CELIA. The play gives no details about their appearance.
APPENDIX B
PROPERTIES AND STAGE FURNITURE MENTIONED IN VOLPONE
I. Those associated with wealth
Shrine with gold and jewels in it
Rich hangings in Volpone’s bedroom
Volpone’s purse
Large piece of plate
Keys to Volpone’s treasure
Bag of gold coins
Pearl and diamond
Handmade cap
Rope of pearls, carbuncle, diamond, earring
Corbaccio’s purse
Jewels
Keys to Volpone’s house
I.i.2
I.i.61
I.i.67
I.iii.10
I.iii.40
I.iv.69
I.v.6, 17
III.v.15
III.vii.191 ff.
IV.vi.86
V.iii.53
V.v.12
II. Those associated with illness
Volpone’s sickbed
Jar of ointment for eyes
Corbaccio’s jar of opiate
Pillow
Glass of medicine
Litter to bring Volpone into courtroom
Bowl of wine
Sedan chair for Corbaccio
I.i.61
I.ii.115
I.iv.13
I.v.68
II.ii.s.d. seq. 113
IV.vi. s.d. seq. 19
V.i.11
V.iii.4
126
FRANCES NICOL TEAGUE
III. Those that are written matter
Nano’s charta
Bill describing Scoto’s medicine
Small books
Cobaccio’s will
Sir Politic Would-be’s letter
Sir Politic Would-be’s diary
Blank will in chest
Account book
Paper, pen, and ink
Voltore’s notes
I.ii.14
II.ii.s.d. seq. 113
III.iv.83
III.ix.9
IV.i.53
IV.i.133
V.ii.71–2
V.ii.81
V.ii.81–2
V.x.33
IV. Others
Chest in bedroom to hold gowns, will, etc.
Stage for mountebank
Handkerchief
Stool for Volpone to stand on
Stool for Mosca in courtroom
V.ii.71
II.ii.1
II.ii.s.d. seq. 226
V.ii.84
V.xii.49
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