Essay Ally

Ben Jonson’s Volpone: Not Just Another Elizabethan Didactic Comedy

Ben Jonson is considered second only to Shakespeare in Elizabethan Drama. Why is Jonson second? While Jonson is extremely bright, and his plays witty and well written, they do not contain the traditional moral and broad reaching themes of Shakespeare. Volpone, one of Jonson’s most popular plays pretends to be one such drama, but fails to be convincing. This failure however, is intentional. Volpone, disguised as a didactic comedy, is actually an intelligent and cynical satire that challenges the audience to rethink their moral expectations.

The false moral of the play is introduced early. Volpone announces it directly: “‘Tis true, ’tis true. What a rare punishment is avarice to itself!” (Jonson I, i) The irony of this statement is obvious immediately. Volpone is the primary schemer in the play. If anyone will fall victim to this moral, it most certainly will be him. Why is he revealing his fate? The line is Jonson’s first intervention. He makes his presence known to the audience for a purpose, though his intentions are not revealed until later. Jonson knows his moral must come about through an impossible set of coincidences, resembling a Shakespeare play, but he wishes for this impossibility to be obvious. This is when the play becomes a satire.

In order for Volpone to be punished by his own actions, several unlikely events occur: Celia must ask for divine intervention, rather than revealing the story on her own behalf, Voltore, the lawyer, must find a conscience, Mosca, the parasite, must be greedy beyond measure, and Volpone must decide that judgment by advocates is a better fate than giving his prized possessions to Mosca. While each of these events by itself may be believable, the series of coincidences to make the play’s moral come true through each of these events is beyond unbelievable.

Volpone is wealthy and fun-loving. However, he is not satisfied with simply living wealthy, and entertains himself through the manipulation of three other wealthy Venicians; Corvino, Corbaccio, and Voltore. Each of these men showers Volpone with gifts, and do his bidding, as they think he is likely to drop dead shortly, and yield his fortune to them. Mosca devises the schemes which continue to manipulate them, for his supposed benefit. The delight that Volpone and Mosca take in their devilry aids the coincidences.

Celia is offered to Volpone by her own husband Corvino. Corvino is duped into believing that Volpone is nearly dead, his fortune up for grabs, and him in desperate want of a woman to sleep with for medical purposes. While believing that Corvino would fall for this is difficult, it is necessary for the story to go on. Celia, being the good Christian, refuses to cooperate with Volpone, who feigns illness and appears bedridden. At her refusal, Volpone springs from his bed and attempts to rape her. “Yield, or I’ll force thee” he commands her (Jonson III, v). Bonario, the son of Corbaccio, another attempting to gain Volpone’s inheritance, intervenes at the perfect moment. In a remarkable coincidence, Bonario is hiding in a room other than the one instructed to by Mosca. He is originally there to hear his father disinherit him in order to gain Volpone’s fortune, but instead decides to hide where he will be in the proper place to break up the rape, which he has no prior knowledge of. When the rape does not occur, Volpone and Mosca are forced to come up with a plan to cover their tracks as they are brought before the advocates at trial.

At the trial, Voltore assists Volpone and Mosca in hiding their schemes. “Upon my faith and credit with your virtues, He is not able to endure the air.” Voltore tells the Advocates that Volpone is not present to defend himself because he is too ill (Jonson IV, ii). He then proceeds to tell them that Bonario and “the lewd woman” Celia have had an affair (Jonson IV, ii). Voltore informs the advocates:

“This gentleman, the father,
Hearing of this foul fact, with many others,
Which daily struck at his too tender ears,
And grieved in nothing more than that he could not
Preserve himself a parent, (his son’s ills
Growing to that strange flood,) at last decreed
To disinherit him (Jonson IV, ii).”

The entire deception is now complete. Volpone and Mosca are not responsible for Celia and Bonario’s misbehavior, Corbaccio’s disinheritance of his son is for noble reasons and Corvino is the unhappy victim of a marriage to an adulteress. “Our consciences. Celia, And heaven, that never fails the innocent” Bonario tells Celia in response to their fate (Jonson IV, ii). But Deus ex Machina is not in their fate, with the exception of Jonson as a possible god-figure.

This ending is reminiscent of Aesop’s fables and the story of “Reynard the Fox”. In the story Reynard tells a raven how smart, and beautiful he is. When the fox tells the raven what a beautiful voice he must have, the raven to stroke his own ego, begins singing and drops a piece of cheese he’s been holding so dearly. If Volpone were to end here, the moral would be believable. This false ending however is not satisfactory for Jonson’s audience. Celia and Bonario, innocent victims are imprisoned, and Volpone has gotten away unscathed. Jonson finds that it is time to intervene on the behalf of poetic justice and satire.

The fifth act is Jonson’s satirical masterpiece. In order to bring Volpone to justice, Jonson makes his presence known and strings together a remarkable set of events. Volpone first decides that he is not satisfied to leave well-enough alone. He proposes to Mosca that he play dead and leave his inheritance to his parasite in order to anger all those remaining. “It seem’d to me, you sweat, sir (Jonson V, i).” Mosca reminds Volpone of his fear during the trial and suggests that they stop.

“Go, Straight give out about the streets, you two,
That I am dead; do it with constancy,
Sadly, do you hear? impute it to the grief
Of this late slander (Jonson V, i).”

Volpone takes over as the primary mastermind of the plans. This is a necessary device to trigger the next series of coincidences. Mosca has been planning things all along for Volpone, and has played the figure of playwright. Where Mosca has control, Volpone has cowardice, and the control he exerts here is out of character. This ironic device is intentionally placed by Jonson to make the impossibility of the moral that much more distinct.

Volpone does not have the control that Mosca does, and so failure and revelation is inevitable. While Volpone travels the city taunting his victims that he is dead, and they have received nothing, the most impossible thing occurs. Voltore, risking humiliation and disbarment goes before the advocates and recants his testimony.

“It is not passion in me, reverend fathers,
But only conscience, conscience, my good sires,
That makes me now tell truth. That parasite,
That knave, hath been the instrument of all (Jonson V, vi).”

This event is extremely problematic. Why does Voltore have a stroke of conscience now? What is to be gained from revealing the scheme, when he believes Volpone to be dead? Volpone will not be punished for his actions since he is dead. Celia and Bonario are of no consequence to Voltore. Nor will Voltore gain any of the inheritance for participating in these schemes. The confession is there in order for Jonson to intrude in the play, and bring about the satirical ending.

The strange and impossible events do not stop here. Volpone, in disguise senses that he is in danger of being revealed. He whispers to Voltore:

“Sir, the parasite
Will’d me to tell you, that his master lives;
That you are still the man; your hopes the same;
And this was only a jest- (Jonson V, viii)”

Volpone then instructs Voltore to feign madness. He believes that if Voltore acts crazy, and then Volpone is revealed to be alive, the rest of the confession will be disregarded. Voltore begins to go along with Volpone’s plan; his conscience seems to be of no importance anymore. Mosca then conveniently arrives on the scene. Volpone instructs Mosca to reveal that Volpone is in fact alive to reinforce the story of Voltore. Mosca confounds Volpone and ruins the entire scheme. He refuses to acknowledge Volpone living. Mosca has his own scheme now. “Will you give me half?” Mosca asks Volpone (V, viii). “First, I’ll be hang’d.” Mosca replies (V, viii). This refusal makes little sense as Volpone is not in the position to be bargaining. After some thought, Volpone changes his mind; he agrees to the proposition. Mosca does something drastic and greedy, he decides that half is not good enough now, and he desires the whole fortune. While this move is risky and unnecessary, Mosca is in the position to make such a demand. The most unlikely event in the entire play occurs at this point. Volpone reveals himself to the court.

“I am Volpone, and this is my knave;
This, [to Volt.] his own knave; this, [to Corb.] avarice’s fool;
This, [to Corv.] a chimera of wittol, fool, and knave:
And, reverend fathers, since we all can hope
Nought but a sentence, let’s not now despair it.
You hear me brief (Jonson V, viii).”

The moment that Volpone reveals himself is astounding. He has nothing to be gained by doing so. He will not be able to keep his fortune; he will be forced to jail. Volpone knows this fact, so why does this exclamation occur? It could be that Volpone would rather rot in a cell then know that he’s been outwitted by Mosca. It could be that in the heat of the moment, he cared only about preserving his power. But this seems against character and against human nature. The entire fifth act in fact, seems implausible and unbelievable.

Jonson’s genius is obvious in the existence of the fifth act. Were the play to end after the fourth in what scholars call the “false ending”, the play would be a simple comedy with a moral like that of Reynard the Fox. Jonson acknowledges his awareness of this with a statement made by Volpone in the fifth.

“Methinks
Yet you, that are so traded in the world,
A witty merchant, the fine bird, Corvino,
That have such moral emblems on your name,
Should not have sung your shame, and dropt your cheese,
To let the Fox laugh at your emptiness ( Jonson V, v).”

Jonson is again showing his presence by stating the obvious literary reference. The play is not meant to end with a proper moral and a standard ending. Jonson uses the fifth act to approach a cynical and satirical ending mocking those of standard popular Elizabethan plays. While Shakespeare makes reference to drama in his own works “all the world’s a stage” etc., it is never so cynical, so biting as Jonson (Shakespeare II, vii).

The expected ending does come. All of the characters receive the punishments fitting their crimes; Mosca is sent to the galleys as a slave, Corvino is rowed around Venice wearing ass ears, Bonario receives his fathers inheritance pre-mortem, Celia is freed to go home to her father with three times her original dowry and of course Voltore is disbarred. Volpone loses everything and avarice is its own punishment; the so-called “mortifying of the fox” (Jonson V, viii). But this moral is not easily won, nor is it left to rest at that. Jonson wants to make sure that his satire is not taken lightly. If the series of coincidences was not easy to come by, Jonson assures that the distance between audience and play remains forever broken.

“The seasoning of a play, is the applause.
Now, though the Fox be punish’d by the laws,
He yet doth hope, there is no suffering due,
For any fact which he hath done ‘gainst you;
If there be, censure him; here he doubtful stands:
If not, fare jovially, and clap your hands (Jonson V, viii).”

Volpone speaks to the audience directly and informs them that his punishment will not cause any suffering provided the audience shows their praise. This moment is both silly and brilliant for Jonson. His awareness for the audience has been there throughout the play, and he has shown himself on the stage as much as any of the characters. The play is satirizing itself as well as the didactic plays of Shakespeare and other contemporaries.

The question remaining, if the play is a satire at the audience’s expense, is why is the Volpone so popular? Despite the fact that Jonson pokes fun at didactic plays, he knows the tradition that has been maintained since the great Greek Tragedies. Plays have always been used as a moral institution as well as a pacifier. His play, while defusing the morals of avarice being its own punishment, and god intervening on behalf of the righteous, offers its own more cynical morals. The good can easily fall victim to the wicked, and it is obvious that it will take an unlikely set of events to free those from harm. While this verity is not a pleasant one, it is presented in a brilliant guise with humor and flare that appeals to the audience. The truly sly fox here is Ben Jonson.

Works Cited:

Jonson, Ben. Volpone. Ed. Candace Ward. New York: Dover Publications Inc. 1994

Shakespeare, William. As You Like It. New York