Volpone and The Alchemist

Ben Jonson

• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780486436302
• eBook ISBN: 9780486153643
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: British Drama
• Index: Literature

Much-studied and frequently performed, these comedies by the great Elizabethan playwright Ben Jonson satirize the greed, mendacity, gullibility, and pretension of seventeenth-century London society. Both plays abound in colorful characters, ingenious plotting, biting wit, and sharp insight into human nature.
In Volpone (1605), a crafty rich man attempts to augment his wealth by feigning a mortal illness. His wealthy neighbors, spying the opportunity for an inheritance, vie with each other in courting the “dying” man’s favor. The Alchemist (1610) comprises a likewise avaricious cast, headed by a butler and prostitute who join forces with a swindler claiming to possess the philosopher's stone. The trio hosts a parade of eager victims whose hypocrisy and greed place them on a moral footing similar to that of the tricksters. Both plays offer sparkling examples of their author's novel approach to satire and his distinctive blend of savagery, humor, moralism, and a powerful sense of the absurd.

The Alchemist

DRAMATIS PERSONAE

SUBTLE, the Alchemist.
FACE, the House-keeper.
DOL COMMON, their colleague.
DAPPER, a [Lawyer’s] clerk.
DRUGGER, a Tobacco-man.
LOVEWIT, Master of the House.
[SIR] EPICURE MAMMON, a Knight.
[PERTINAX] SURLY, a Gamester.
TRIBULATION [WHOLESOME], a Pastor of Amsterdam.
ANANIAS, a Deacon there.
KASTRILL, the angry boy.
DAME PLIANT, his sister, a Widow.
Neighbours.
Officers, Mutes.

SCENE.—London.

TO THE READER

IF thou beest more, thou art an understander, and then I trust thee. If thou art one that tak’st up, and but a pretender, beware at what hands thou receiv’st thy commodity; for thou wert never more fair in the way to be coz’ned than in this age in poetry, especially in plays: wherein now the concupiscence of jigs and dances so reigneth, as to run away from nature and be afraid of her is the only point of art that tickles the spectators. But how out of purpose and place do I name art, when the professors are grown so obstinate contemners of it, and presumers on their own naturals,¹⁹² as they are deriders of all diligence that way, and, by simple mocking at the terms when they understand not the things, think to get off wittily with their ignorance! Nay, they are esteem’d the more learned and sufficient for this by the multitude, through their excellent vice¹⁹³ of judgment. For they commend writers as they do fencers or wrastlers; who, if they come in robustiously and put for it with a great deal of violence, are receiv’d for the braver fellows; when many times their own rudeness is the cause of their disgrace, and a little touch of their adversary gives all that boisterous force the foil.¹⁹⁴ I deny not but that these men who always seek to do more than enough may some time happen on some thing that is good and great; but very seldom: and when it comes, it doth not recompence the rest of their ill. It sticks out, perhaps, and is more eminent, because all is sordid and vile about it; as lights are more discern’d in a thick darkness than a faint shadow. I speak not this out of a hope to do good on any man against his will; for I know, if it were put to the question of theirs and mine, the worse would find more suffrages, because the most favour common errors. But I give thee this warning, that there is a great difference between those that (to gain the opinion of copie¹⁹⁵) utter¹⁹⁶ all they can, however unfitly, and those that use election and a mean. For it is only the disease of the unskillful to think rude things greater than polish’d, or scatter’d more numerous than compos’d.

ARGUMENT

T HE sickness hot, a master quit, for fear,
H is house in town, and left one servant there.
E ase him corrupted, and gave means to know
A Cheater and his punk;¹⁹⁷ who now brought low,
L eaving their narrow practice, were become
C oz’ners¹⁹⁸ at large; and only wanting some
H ouse to set up, and with him they here contract,
E ach for a share, and all begin to act.
M uch company they draw, and much abuse,
I n casting figures, telling fortunes, news,
S elling of flies,¹⁹⁹ flat bawdry, with the stone,²⁰⁰
T ill it, and they, and all in fume²⁰¹ are gone.

PROLOGUE

FORTUNE, that favours fools, these two short hours
We wish away, both for your sakes and ours,
Judging spectators; and desire in place,
To th’ author justice, to ourselves but grace.
Our scene is London, ’cause we would make known,
No country’s mirth is better than our own.
No clime breeds better matter for your whore,
Bawd, squire, impostor, many persons more,
Whose manners, now call’d humours, feed the stage;
And which have still been subject for the rage
Or spleen of comic writers. Though this pen
Did never aim to grieve, but better men;
Howe’er the age he lives in doth endure
The vices that she breeds, above their cure.
But when the wholesome remedies are sweet,
And, in their working gain and profit meet,
He hopes to find no spirit so much diseas’d,
But will with such fair correctives be pleas’d.
For here he doth not fear who can apply.
If there be any that will sit so nigh
Unto the stream, to look what it doth run,
They shall find things, they’d think, or wish, were done;
They are so natural follies, but so shown,
As even the doers may see, and yet not own.

ACT I

SCENE I.—A room in Lovewit’s house

[Enter] FACE, [in a captain’s uniform, with his sword drawn, and] SUBTLE [with a vial, quarrelling, and followed by] DOL COMMON.

FACE. Believe ’t, I will.

SUB. Thy worst. I fart at thee...

Table of contents

• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Note
• Table of Contents
• Volpone
• The Alchemist
• DOVER • THRIFT • EDITIONS - PLAYS