Page 210 - DENG403_BRITISH_DRAMA

British Drama

Notes Volpone’s plan to blatantly mock those he has duped. He leaves, and Mosca makes some cryptic
comments to the effect that Volpone won’t be regaining his own identity before he comes to terms
with Mosca. He gives Nano, Castrone and Androgyno some money before telling them to find new
work. Mosca again cryptically comments that he will either “gain” by Volpone, or “bury him.”

Scene VI

The scene has now moved to a street, where Corvino and Corbaccio are disguised. Volpone enters
in disguise. He begins asking the two what they have inherited from the dead magnifico, Volpone;
they react to his questions with predictable annoyance. Volpone annoys them further by reminding
them of what they did in their failed attempts to gain Volpone’s inheritance; how Corbaccio signed
his own son out of his will, and how Corvino prostituted his wife. They leave, and Volpone goes on
to his next victim.

Scene VII

Voltore enters, walking down the street, completely disbelieving that he has lost the inheritance to
Mosca, a parasite. Volpone comes up to him, and begins asking about one of his own properties, a
small “bawdy-house.” He implies that since Voltore is the old magnifico’s heir, he is the one to talk
to about purchasing this property and perhaps renovating it; it is, after all, nothing at all to someone
of Voltore’s newfound wealth and stature. Volpone’s irony drives Voltore to frustration, and he
leaves. Volpone returns to Corbaccio and Corvino.

Scene VIII
Corbaccio and Corvino enter, and watch Mosca pass by in his fine robes. They are infuriated, and
even more so when Volpone arrives to continue taunting them. He now inquires whether the rumours
about the parasite are true; knowing that they are, he proceeds to admonish Corbaccio and Corvino
for having so handily been defeated by Mosca, and having lost their dignity in the process. Corvino
then challenges Volpone to a fight, but Volpone wisely backs off.

Scene IX
Voltore makes a cryptic threat to Mosca: though he is in summer now, his “winter shall come on.”
Mosca tells Voltore not to speak foolishly. Volpone then arrives, and hoping to taunt Voltore further,
asks him if he wants Volpone to beat Mosca, to avenge the terrible disgrace Voltore now suffers for
being gulled by a parasite. Further adding insult to injury, he demands to know whether or not
Mosca’s inheritance is in fact a joke. After all, Volpone implies, a lawyer couldn’t have been
outsmarted by a parasite. Voltore leaves, tormented and humiliated.

Analysis to Scene V-Scene IX
The issue of social class had been treated indirectly in the play through the character of Mosca,
forced to be Volpone’s parasite due to his poverty; but Jonson deals with it explicitly here. The
Elizabethans had a fairly rigid conception of social class, certainly by today’s standards. Volpone
remarks it is a pity that Mosca was not a born a clarissimo, because he plays the part so well; Mosca
replies aside that he may very well keep his “made one”, turning Volpone’s comment into a piece of
dramatic irony. Mosca puns on the word “made”, hoping to be a self-”made” man, and achieving it
through “manufacture” and “fabrication”, two other senses of the word “made”. This implies that
Mosca’s social status is now fake, artificial. So Volpone’s lies have resulted in the destabilization of
the social order. This destablization is reinforced by the anger Voltore express about being

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