VOLT: For which, now struck in conscience, here, I prostate Myself at your offended feet, for pardon.
1, 2 AVOC: Arise.
CEL: O heaven, how just thou art!
VOLP [ASIDE.]: I am caught In mine own noose-
CORV [TO CORBACCIO.]: Be constant, sir: nought now Can help, but impudence.
1 AVOC: Speak forward.
COM: Silence!
VOLT: It is not pa.s.sion in me, reverend fathers, But only conscience, conscience, my good sires, That makes me now tell trueth. That parasite, That knave, hath been the instrument of all.
1 AVOC: Where is that knave? fetch him.
VOLP: I go.
[EXIT.]
CORV: Grave fathers, This man"s distracted; he confest it now: For, hoping to be old Volpone"s heir, Who now is dead-
3 AVOC: How?
2 AVOC: Is Volpone dead?
CORV: Dead since, grave fathers-
BON: O sure vengeance!
1 AVOC: Stay, Then he was no deceiver?
VOLT: O no, none: The parasite, grave fathers.
CORV: He does speak Out of mere envy, "cause the servant"s made The thing he gaped for: please your fatherhoods, This is the truth, though I"ll not justify The other, but he may be some-deal faulty.
VOLT: Ay, to your hopes, as well as mine, Corvino: But I"ll use modesty. Pleaseth your wisdoms, To view these certain notes, and but confer them; As I hope favour, they shall speak clear truth.
CORV: The devil has enter"d him!
BON: Or bides in you.
4 AVOC: We have done ill, by a public officer, To send for him, if he be heir.
2 AVOC: For whom?
4 AVOC: Him that they call the parasite.
3 AVOC: "Tis true, He is a man of great estate, now left.
4 AVOC: Go you, and learn his name, and say, the court Entreats his presence here, but to the clearing Of some few doubts.
[EXIT NOTARY.]
2 AVOC: This same"s a labyrinth!
1 AVOC: Stand you unto your first report?
CORV: My state, My life, my fame-
BON: Where is it?
CORV: Are at the stake
1 AVOC: Is yours so too?
CORB: The advocate"s a knave, And has a forked tongue-
2 AVOC: Speak to the point.
CORB: So is the parasite too.
1 AVOC: This is confusion.
VOLT: I do beseech your fatherhoods, read but those- [GIVING THEM THE PAPERS.]
CORV: And credit nothing the false spirit hath writ: It cannot be, but he"s possest grave fathers.
[THE SCENE CLOSES.]
SCENE 5.7.
A STREET.
ENTER VOLPONE.
VOLP: To make a snare for mine own neck! and run My head into it, wilfully! with laughter!
When I had newly "scaped, was free, and clear, Out of mere wantonness! O, the dull devil Was in this brain of mine, when I devised it, And Mosca gave it second; he must now Help to sear up this vein, or we bleed dead.- [ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.]
How now! who let you loose? whither go you now?
What, to buy gingerbread? or to drown kitlings?
NAN: Sir, master Mosca call"d us out of doors, And bid us all go play, and took the keys.
AND: Yes.
VOLP: Did master Mosca take the keys? why so!
I"m farther in. These are my fine conceits!
I must be merry, with a mischief to me!