Volpone

In Act II, Jonson introduces the play’s subplot involving the absurd knight Sir Politic and another Englishman in Venice, Peregrine. The pair’s conversations offer comic relief from the main plot while also allowing Jonson to satirize Sir Politic’s pompous behavior. Jonson presents Sir Politic as a know-it-all with an inflated sense of importance, which makes him unaware of how absurd he seems to others. Peregrine expresses his disbelief in the earnestness of Sir Politic’s self-construction when he exclaims in an aside, “Oh, this knight / (Were he well known) would be a precious thing / To fit our English stage” (2.1.56-58). Peregrine speaks directly to the audience in this and other asides to draw attention to the knight’s foolishness. Sir Politic’s attribution of nefarious schemes and bad omens to the news Peregrine tells him instills further humor. Sir Politic’s superstitious farce is so thorough that Peregrine thinks the knight is tricking him. This foreshadows Peregrine’s ultimate determination that Sir Politic’s act must be fake, which leads him to retaliate against this perceived trick.

For Volpone to see Celia, he must leave the comfort of his house undetected. To do so, he works with Mosca to disguise himself as a mountebank. In the Early Modern Period, mountebanks were salespeople with a reputation for swindling their customers with promises of phony cure-all medicines. Mountebanks used elaborate speeches to profess the truth of their pseudoscience, preying on the desperate and uneducated masses. Volpone’s disguise as a mountebank reveals his affinity for deceiving others with false promises to make a profit for himself. The disguise also exposes Volpone’s first signs of weakness. After his performance, Volpone worriedly asks Mosca, “Is not the color o’ my beard and eyebrows / To make me known?” (2.4.30-31). Beyond the safety of his house, Volpone lacks confidence about his deceptive abilities, and the anxiety of being caught weighs heavy on him. By Act II, Scene 6, Mosca goes out to spin the plot on his master’s behalf, which marks the beginning of his growing independence from Volpone.

Volpone’s performance as a mountebank In Scene 2 functions as something like a play within the play, illustrating The Moral Impact of Performance as Volpone uses performative skill to deceive his audience. Volpone displays his command of language by using several rhetorical tricks to persuade his audience to purchase his fake elixir. Firstly, Volpone creates a dichotomy between himself and other mountebanks. He aligns himself with the honorable audience when he claims that he too hates these scamming salesmen: “No, no, worthy gentlemen, to tell you true, I cannot endure to see the rabble of the ground ciarlitani” (2.2.47-48). The Italian word ciarlitani is equivalent to the English charlatans—a word that, like mountebank, began as a value-neutral signifier of professional identity before taking on a strongly negative connotation due to dishonest practices like those seen here. When he insults other mountebanks for being “turdy-facy-nasty-paty-lousy-fartical rogues” (2.2.58), Volpone implicitly places himself in opposition to these men, amplifying his trustworthiness. Volpone then uses hyperbole to impress his listeners with a list of ailments his elixir can cure:

The mal caduco, cramps, convulsions, paralysies, epilepsies, tremor-cordis, retired nerves, ill vapors of the spleen, stopping of the liver, the stone, the strangury, hernia ventosa, iliaca passio; stops a dysenteria immediately; easeth the torsion of the small guts: and cures melancholia hypocondriaca, being taken and applied according to my printed receipt (2.2.100-05).

Such an extensive list overwhelms Volpone’s listener with information, at once exhausting their ability to detect falsehoods and enchanting them with the promise of the elixir’s power. Finally, Volpone employs prolepsis, the rhetorical device of answering potential objections before they are made. For example, he knows the audience will wonder about others who make the same claims as him, so he answers these fears in advance: “Indeed, very many have assayed, like apes of imitation of that which is really and essentially in me, to make of this oil” (2.2.142-143). The statement both improves his rapport with the audience and further contrasts his purported honesty with others’ deception.

The addition of Celia into Volpone and Mosca’s plot further develops the theme of The Corrupting Power of Greed. Volpone’s desire for Celia rapidly grows from the moment he first sees her. Along with his lust for money, Volpone also has a limitless desire for all forms of pleasure. His willingness to complicate the simple con with another, more dangerous scheme displays the insatiability of his avarice. The plot also develops Corvino’s greed, as he agrees to let his wife sleep with Volpone on the chance that he will inherit the fortune. Only one scene prior to agreeing to the plot, Corvino expresses his violent jealousy toward his wife—who he keeps locked in his house for fear of her infidelity—through threats to her agency. His near-immediate retraction of these threats when his inheritance is on the line demonstrates the lengths he will go to—even against his own beliefs—to make money.