Page 191 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

Unit 16: Volpone: Satire and all its Detailed Analysis and Comedy

and makes more strange his own lack of children, making the failure to reproduce seem more an Notes
essential part of his character, rather than an accident of fate. Thus, the lack of the basic human
drive to reproduce seems, and certainly would seem to Elizabethan audiences, an indication that
Volpone is something less than human, probably due to his inverted system of values.
In case we forget that this is a comedy, the scene also sets a lighthearted, erudite tone, for the play
and helps highlight several of Volpone’s redeeming qualities that make him a sympathetic
protagonist. Nano traces a lineage for Androgyno’s soul in rhyming couplets, thus demonstrating a
gift for rhetoric similar to the one his master displayed in the first scene. Using this device, Jonson
also manages to incorporate a great number of names from classical, which signify his allegiance to
classical literature. Volpone, like most of Jonson’s plays, follows the unities of classical drama: the
unity of time, the unity of place and unity of action. Very few dramatists stuck to these rules perfectly,
and Jonson is no exception; though the play conforms to the first two unities farely well, it completely
ignores unity of action with an entire subplot centering around the traveler Peregrine and the knight
Sir Politic Would-be. Nano’s song about “fools” refers directly to himself.

Volpone calls him his “fool,” but indirectly to Volpone; for “fool” is an Elizabethan
word for “court jester” or “joker”; his defining characteristic is “wit” and “merry making.”
Fools, in this sense, can be thought of as the earliest professional comedians, pointing out the
folly of the ruling classes for their own amusement; because he is a source of laughter, and not
serious attack, “he speaks truth, free from slaughter,” in other words, without fear of
repercussions. He is thus also isolated from normal society, not subject to the usual laws of
decorum and propriety that govern others; this distance and outsiders’ perspective, as well as
the freedom to speak his mind, gives him a moral superiority, especially in an age of hypocrisy,
where truth-telling is in short supply.

16.2.3 Scene III
Voltore the lawyer—whose name means “vulture” in Italian—enters with Mosca, and Mosca assures
him that he will be Volpone’s heir. Voltore asks after Volpone’s health, and Volpone thanks him for
both his kindness and his gift of a large piece of gold plate. The magnifico then informs the lawyer
that his health is failing, and he expects to die soon. Voltore asks Mosca three times whether he is
Volpone’s heir before he is finally satisfied with Mosca’s answer, at which point he rejoices. He asks
why he is so lucky, and Mosca explains that it is partly due to the fact that Volpone has always had
an admiration for lawyers and the way they can argue either side of a case at a moment’s notice. He
then begs Voltore not to forget him when the lawyer inherits Volpone’s money and becomes rich.
Voltore leaves happy, with a kiss for Mosca, at which point Volpone jumps out of bed and
congratulates his parasite on a job well done. But the game quickly starts again, as another would-
be heir arrives, identified only as “the raven.”

16.2.4 Scene IV

“The raven” turns out to be Corbaccio, an elderly man, who, according to Mosca, is in much worse
health himself than Volpone pretends to be. Corbaccio offers to give Volpone a drug, but Mosca
refuses out of fear that the drug may be Corbaccio’s way of speeding up the dying process. Mosca
excuses his refusal by saying that Volpone simply does not trust the medical profession in general,
to which Corbaccio agrees. Corbaccio then inquires after Mosca’s health; as Mosca lists off the ever-
worsening symptoms, Corbaccio marks his approval of each one, except when he mishears one of
Mosca’s replies and gets worried that Volpone might be improving. But Mosca assures him that
Volpone is, in fact, getting worse and is in fact nearly dead. This cheers up Corbaccio greatly, who

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