"A Pretty Kind of Game": Ben Jonson's Volpone and The Alchemist

We'll finish our look at Ben Jonson's comedies today with perhaps his most well-regarded efforts: Volpone, or The Fox and The Alchemist.

Additional music: "In Town Tonight" by Eric Coates, perf. Reginald Dixon.  From the Internet Archive.

Transcript

Welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends!  I’m so glad you could attend!  This is the Classic English Literature Podcast, an idiosyncratic look at the transformative texts of English literature.  Today, we continue our conversation about Ben Jonson, that great bear of the Jacobean stage and shameless self-promoter.  Last time, we looked over two of his early comedies – when he was the great self-promoting bear of the Elizabethan stage – Every Man In His Humor and Every Man Out of His Humor, which set the template for not only Jonson’s general approach to comedy, but for an entire subgenre: the comedy of humors, in which characters are driven by one dominant personality trait (a humor, roughly based on the Hippocratic theory of bodily fluids).  That trait usually results in some comic undoing, at which we morally superior punters smirk complacently.

I also said I didn’t think those plays were very funny.  Maybe I should have clarified: I don’t find the plays as texts very funny.  In the hands of gifted performers and directors, one could certainly have a rollicking good time.  The plays I want to discuss today certainly bear similarities to the humors plays, but Jonson’s writing feels less, oh, I don’t know, derivative, especially of his classical models.  Today’s plays feel more English.

Before we get started, I want to remind you of the new Fan Mail feature – on the episode’s landing page, there’s a button to send me a message: let me know your thoughts, questions, or comments.  Of course, I have the regular email and antisocial media.  Love to hear from you.  Also, if you can, please click the support the show button to make a donation.  I have to say that the ad revenue has really dried up lately, so anything you can do to help is deeply appreciated.

I said that I didn’t find the early comedies funny as texts, funny for the reader.  And that’s odd, given that Ben Jonson, more than any other writer of his age, was preternaturally conscious of himself as an author.  That is, he had his eye not only on the immediacy of the stage (as did Shakespeare) but also on the world of publishing, on posterity.  To that end, he inaugurated one of the most influential acts in the history of literary publishing.  In 1616, the very year Shakespeare died (the cause of his death might even be some kind of seizure following a night of excess with Ben Jonson), the latter writer published a folio called The Works of Benjamin Jonson.  This other first folio is significant because the author includes his nine plays and several court masques, not merely his poetry, as part of his “works” – giving the somewhat lowbrow medium of drama the same respect one gave to verse.  And, of course, the elegant and expensive folio style elevates the status of the author, too.  Ben did indeed take a lot of stick for this egregious self-promotion, but perhaps without such big-headedness, Hemmings and Condell would not have thought to commission Shakespeare's first folio, and all those plays would be lost to us.

The most significant plays from this first folio are comedies – Volpone, or The Fox from 1605 and The Alchemist from 1610 – both similar in intention to the Every Man In and Outs (which are also included), but I think more deftly executed and less preachy.

Both plays satirize early 17th century London life, which Jonson sees as rife with a morally bankrupting ambition for wealth and status.  So far so similar to the humors comedies.  But ideas inchoate in those plays – like the idea of human relations as entirely transactional, gullibility and self-deception, the idea of identity as performance, and the emptiness of social relations and institutions under such circumstances – are more fully fleshed out now.

Let’s take them in chronological order and do the quick and dirty for Volpone.

Volpone, a wealthy man sans offspring, decides to play a trick upon three of his acquaintances. each of whom jockeys with the others to become his heir.  He pretends to be deathly ill, prompting the three sycophants to lavish him with gifts to gain his favor and, of course, his cash. 

Mosca, his servant, tells each contestant separately that they are the chosen one.  First Voltore, then Corbaccio, then Corvino.  He tells Corbaccio to go home, disinherit his own son Bonario, and leave that legacy to Volpone, who will no doubt return the favor in his own testament. Corvino should let his wife sleep in Volpone’s bed – the old man’s heart just couldn’t take the strain.  Finally, Mosca tells Bonario that his father intends to disinherit him, promising to take him somewhere to witness his father’s treachery.

Meanwhile, back at the sick-bed, Lady Politick Would-Be talks so incessantly that Volpone fears for his actual health. Mosca says that Sir Politick is snogging a floozy in a gondola, and Lady Would-Be flies off in jealous pursuit.  Then Mosca leads Bonario behind a curtain so the young man can spy on his father – this has never gone badly on stage before.  Tada!  Corvino arrives and Mosca has to fob Bonario off to deal privately with him.

But when Corvino leaves, Volpone leaps from his couch and attempts to force himself upon Mrs. Corvino – named Celia – only to be saved by Bonario.

Corbaccio pops in to check if Volpone is still upright, Voltore demands an explanation, Mosca provides one.  But we end up in court nonetheless.  Mosca has Corvino and Corbaccio testify against Celia and Bonario, then presents Lady Would-Be, who obviously, has been assured she is Volpone’s heir.  After the trial, Volpone sends word that he is dead and that Mosca shall inherit. 

Slowly, it dawns on Voltore that Mosca always planned to keep the fortune for himself. Volpone – miraculously resurrected – testifies to the wretched behavior of Corbaccio, Corvino, and Voltore. The court passes sentence on each.

OK, so we learn a valuable lesson about greed, but without the nuance of Chaucer’s Pardoner.  We get the ironic / allegorical character names, but this time Jonson uses animal imagery, emphasizing the “less than human” attributes of the characters.  Volpone is Italian for fox, a creature notable for its slyness and cunning.  Mosca is the fly, wallowing in decay and death.  The three marks are all birds: Voltore – the vulture, a carrion feeder, and eater of the dead; Corbaccio – the crow, another symbol of death and feeding off corpses; and Corvino – the raven, more of the same.  Bonario means good-tempered or kind, Celia means heavenly.  All quite medieval, redolent of the bestiaries and morality plays of centuries before.

Let’s think about this a little more, though, shall we?  Readers may have noticed that Volpone’s servant, Mosca (the fly), is sometimes referred to as a parasite.  Hardly flattering that.  We know the word from biology – which came in around 1640 – as an organism that deprives another of nutrients, and while this is the main definition today, it is actually applied in the life sciences as a metaphor for a usage that crept into English in the 1530s: it literally means sponger or toady – or more literally even: one who eats at another’s table (from the Greek para “beside” and sitos “grain or food”).  

Are not all the characters of this play parasitical, or even poly-parasitical?  Is that even a word?  Is now.  These are people who all feed off others – even off other parasites.  Volpone is a social parasite and Mosca feeds off him, and then we get the less literal parasites named for carrion birds, but the same socio-moral principle applies: depriving others or taking advantage of the deprivation of others for one’s own gain.

Ah, but what about Sir Politic and Lady Would-Be?  These names are a bit more in the Jonsonian idiom, less bestial, very like the names in the Every Man In and Out plays.  I think it is their presence in the subplot, which has been dismissed by some critics, that makes Volpone a more morally or politically complex play than the earlier ones.  They function as avatars of a type of social organization that appears thriving but is in fact moribund.  

Let me see if I can tell you why – it’s a little knottier than it might first appear, not at all like the animal images for many other characters.  So, let’s start with the word politic.  In the 17th century, it certainly meant what we think it means: pertaining to the governing of a state or people.  Public affairs, yes.  And it had also begun to take on a sense that seems to be falling out of common usage, though it’s still pretty evident: that is, meaning prudent or cautious.  Finally, we can read it as meaning “wordly wise”: shrewd and astute.  Here is where Jonson puts his primary ironic use: Sir Politic is daftly gullible.  Right, but about as funny as calling a tall guy Tiny.  But it does sort of hollow out any faith one might have in prudent, sophisticated governance or justice.

Which leads us to their hyphenated surname: would-be.  Let’s get word-nerdy here – probably won’t need all this for the point I’m making, but I can’t help myself.  Grammatically, it’s a phrase combining a modal or auxiliary verb (would) with an infinitive (to be).  There are at least four syntactical constructions deploying such a verb phrase:  

Future in the past: It indicates an action that was expected to happen in the future from a past perspective.

• Example: "She said she would be here by noon."

Conditional sentences: It expresses hypothetical or non-real situations.

• Example: "If I were rich, I would be happy."

Subjunctive mood: It helps to express wishes, demands, or suggestions.

• Example: "It is important that he would be on time."

Polite or tentative statements: It can be used to make requests or suggestions sound more polite or less direct.

• Example: "Would you be so kind as to help me?"

Notable in all these is the conspicuous absence of tactile reality.  These utterances do not in any way state facts or evaluate things as they are.  These are only at best anticipatory, at worst fantastical.  As such, we get a more substantial thematic case for the importance of Sir Pol as a foil for Volpone.  Let’s look at his first speech:

Sir, to a wise man, all the world's his soil

It is not Italy, nor France, nor Europe

That must bound me, if my fates call me forth

Yet, I protest, it is no salt desire

Of seeing countries, shifting a religion,

Nor any disaffection to the state

Where I was bred, and unto which I owe

My dearest plots, hath brought me out; much less

That idle, antique, stale, gray-headed-project

Of knowing men's minds and manners, with Ulysses!

But a peculiar humor of my wife's,

Laid for this height of Venice

The Politic Would Bes are the nobility abroad.  He asserts his patriotism and religious faith and, actually, utter lack of curiosity about the world.  So we’ve a bit of the stock stage bluff old English knight – the kind who’d order roast beef and mashed potatoes at an upscale ristorante.  It’s worth noting too that knighthood itself is somewhat parasitic – the Would Bes have purchased their nobility, their honor (just as Shakespeare had, by the by), and are not, as it were, to the manner born.  So off they go abroad, looking for other hosts from which to sponge.

Which brings me back to that issue of the moribund social system.  The Would-Bes are a sort of hollow nobility, one with all the pomp and circumstance but none of the authenticity or pedigree.  My more Marxist-friendly listeners will say that all aristocracy is hollow parasitism – touche.  I’ll not challenge you here.  But in terms of this comedy, there does seem to be a line drawn between the genuine article (even if in some Platonic form) and the pawn shop knockoff.  

What is that genuine article?  In a word: honor.  A mere scutcheon.  Well, yes, Falstaff, that’s what Jonson’s getting at here.  Honor has a bunch of meanings in this play: first, that of political nobility, aristocracy, title.  The Would-Bes have literally purchased honor.  It also means here female chastity or purity.  When Corvino tries to pimp his wife Celia for Volpone’s wealth, he is gambling with her honor.  Celia laments:

Oh, God and his good angels! Whither, whither Is shame fled human breasts? That with such ease, Men dare put off your honours and their own? Is that, which ever was a cause of life, Now placed beneath the basest circumstance? And modesty an exile made, for money?

And, of course, we have honor meaning esteem, or respect, or dignity.  And this meaning, of course, much like the connotations of “would be,” has no tactile or real meaning in the society of play.  Corvino demands that Celia “respect my venture.”  That is, his scheme.  Celia replies: “Before your honor?”  She is exasperated.  He retorts: “Honor! Tut, a breath.  There’s no such thing in nature; a mere term invented to awe fools.”  Hmm . . . wonder if Ben had seen Falstaff in Shakespeare’s Henry IV?  Pretty much the same indictment.  Almost seems that the idea of honor – integrity – is as theatrical and instrumental as the costumes and the plots and the deceptions.  The world, as depicted in this play, is no compassionate society, no Kingdom of Heaven, but rather a base competition among parasites.  Mosca has a little disquisition on the scrabbling, laboring parasite versus the one “dropped from above,” the natural-born, true parasite of excellent nature.  And do note his rather cynical use of the word wise here – not the wisdom of the sage, but the cunning of the confidence man: “Almost all the wise world is little else, in nature, but parasites, or sub-parasites.” 

I suppose one could argue – especially if one is trying to segue smoothly to another subject (as here I struggle to) – that Volpone’s hollowing out of traditional virtues like honor, wisdom, and charity by an ethic of predation is a form of negative alchemy, of decadent transformation.  Another tip of the hat to my Marxist comrades: one could also argue that Jonson attacks the rise of a merchant capitalist society, one that feeds all human endeavor and experience into the maw of the market, where even virtue is commodified.  This, too, is a form of alchemy, turning gold into lead.

What is this alchemy of which you speak, old man?  Well, it’s a practice that goes deep into the past and was part of nearly every culture from which we have records.  But in late medieval and early modern Europe, alchemy, a precursor to modern chemistry, combined elements of science, philosophy, and mysticism. Alchemists sought to understand and manipulate the natural world, aiming to transform base metals into noble ones, such as turning lead into gold (that’s the famous Philosopher’s Stone you may have heard tell of) and to discover the elixir of life, which would grant immortality or perfect health.

This period saw alchemy evolve significantly, influenced by the Renaissance revival of classical texts and the emergence of new scientific methods. Alchemists like Paracelsus and Robert Boyle played crucial roles in this transition, moving the practice from its mystical and esoteric roots toward a more empirical and experimental approach.

Lest we think, however, that such a pursuit of pure knowledge was only motivated by intentions as noble as the transmuted metals, I feel bound to point out that there were some charlatans, mountebanks, and dissemblers who pursued the Philosopher’s stone for their own base motives.

I will pause to let you recover from the shock.

Now, as serendipity would have it, Ben Jonson wrote a play called the Alchemist, which fits nicely with our preceding thesis about predation and commodified human relationships.  Yes, it’s time for the quick and dirty.

The play is set in London and follows the exploits of three con artists who take advantage of a city's temporary state of chaos due to another visit from Mr. Plague.

Lovewit, a gentleman, leaves his London house in the care of his servant, Jeremy, to escape the plague. Jeremy, sensing an opportunity to make some money, hooks up with two other swindlers: Subtle, a conman posing as an alchemist, and Doll Common, a prostitute.

Together, using Lovewit's house as their base of operations, they run an elaborate scheme to deceive various gullible victims by promising them wealth, power, and success through alchemy and other tricks. Bring on the marks:

We’ve got Dapper, a clerk wishing to be an ace gambler. They convince him that he is related to the Queen of Fairy, so riches and luck will be assured.  Then there’s Abel Drugger, a tobacconist who’s told that by arranging his shop according to astrological principles – bit of Jacobean feng shui – it will prosper.  Sir Epicure Mammon obsesses about the philosopher's stone and its power to grant him eternal life and limitless wealth.  Jonson loves to mock Puritans, so Tribulation Wholesome and Ananias seek the philosopher's stone to fund their religious cause.  And there’s Kastril, a country fellow who wants to swing big in the city, along with his widowed sister, Dame Pliant, becomes a target for marriage by the con artists.

As the play moves along, the schemes become increasingly complicated and chaotic. They juggle their victims, teeter on the edge of exposure, but manage to keep the cons running.

Lovewit unexpectedly returns home (hands up who saw that coming?). Jeremy, as trickster  Face, tries to explain the chaos away. Lovewit quickly realizes what's been happening, but instead of punishing the miscreants, he decides to con the con artists. He marries Dame Pliant himself, benefiting from the schemes and forgiving Face in exchange for his loyalty.

I’ve talked before about Jonson’s fealty to the dramatic unities – those of action, time, and place – and this play really doubles down here.  In fact, the play premiered not in London, but in Oxford, as the King’s Men were forced to tour because of plague.  The fictive date of the play’s events is November 1, 1610, which may very well be the date of the Oxford premier.

That’s keeping it real!  When it does play in London, it is done at the Blackfriars Theatre, the very district in which the story is set.  

So, if you’ll indulge me a bit – the theater itself, and the play being performed almost in real time and on site – is a bit of alchemy itself: a transformation of reality.  Surly says, “Alchemy is a pretty kind of game, / Somewhat like tricks o' the cards, to cheat a man / With charming." (2.3.180-182).   The adjective “pretty,” in this line, relies upon its old Germanic root meaning trick or something cunning and artful.  And the word charming obviously evokes something magical, a spell, from its root meaning to sing.  

And there’s certainly a metadramatic element to this play, right?  Some have noted that the ending of the play feels undeservedly happy, but Globe theater project director Andrew Gurr posits that in the meta space of the play, Lovewit, who gets all the money and the girl in return for protecting Jeremy / Face, is actually a projection of Shakespeare himself, who uses a kind of alchemy in the theatrical performance to trick the gullible audience (through the suspension of their disbelief) out of their money.  Face, Subtle, and Doll are performing as alchemists or religious fanatics or whatever serves their venal purposes.  We are charmed by their pretty devices, not only within the narrative but without as we enjoy a day at the theater.  When Subtle babbles about his alchemical process, saying

It is, of the one part,   A humid exhalation, which we call   Material liquida, or the unctuous water;   On the other part, a certain crass and vicious   Portion of earth; both which, concorporate,   Do make the elementary matter of gold;   Which is not yet propria materia,   But common to all metals and all stones;   For, where it is forsaken of that moisture,   And hath more driness, it becomes a stone:   Where it retains more of the humid fatness,   It turns to sulphur, or to quicksilver,   Who are the parents of all other metals,

he speaks utter nonsense, though it is based in the work of Paracelsus, the Swiss alchemist and philosopher.  Subtle knows enough to convince those who know nothing.  But then what is the line between the arcane and the absurd?  The hearer’s gullibility.  And that, often enough, rests upon what one wants to believe.  For the con artist, identifying the mark’s self-image nearly guarantees success.  Sir Epicure Mammon is an almost allegorical figure for gullibility (and, I suspect, something of a shadow of Shakespeare’s character Falstaff).  He seems almost a narcissistic psychopath, firmly convinced of his own virility and prowess.  Convinced the Philosopher’s Stone will bring him untold wealth, that wealth will be spent bribing priests and poets to flatter him, and bribing husbands and parents to sell their wives and children to him for his sexual pleasure:

Where I spy

A wealthy citizen, or [a] rich lawyer,

Have a sublim'd pure wife, unto that fellow

I'll send a thousand pound to be my cuckold. 

We needn’t go over here, I don’t think, the obvious commodification of humans and human relationships in Mammon’s attitude.  It is notable though, that he doesn’t merely intend to cuckold husbands, but to make them his possessions – he says “my cuckold.”  

I think The Alchemist goes further than Volpone in its critique because while both mock greed’s  debasement  of human relationships, The Alchemist shows religion itself, or perhaps even faith, as not only hypocrisy (given the actions of the characters), but as a “pretty kind of game,” a card trick.  The opium of the people, so to speak.  As we saw above, Surly is somewhat skeptical of Subtle’s claims, but Mammon insists he can 

shew you a book where Moses and his sister,

And Solomon have written of the art;

Ay, and a treatise penn'd by Adam -

Of the philosopher's stone, and in High Dutch. . . 

Which proves it was the primitive tongue.

I do like the idea of Adam speaking Dutch, and the joke at the expense of England’s trade rivals.  But the literary point here is that religious authority is mangled and repurposed for the project of deception, and without authority, of course, all may be said to be true, all may be permitted.  We see this in our own world of media silos, deepfakes, competing realities, and alternative facts.  We are primed for our AI Overlords.

Well, that was an ominous way to end a discussion of what are supposed to be comedies.  But I suppose that the comedies that work, that last, that continue to have some bearing on our lives, often touch upon the dark fears and grave concerns we cannot articulate otherwise.  And, of course, that which we mock is less to be feared, though not the less to be regarded.

I should also like to draw your attention to my maturity in this episode, especially concerning The Alchemist.  It is a play, and the only one I know of actually, that opens with a fart (Subtle farts at Face in line 2 – I’ll let you unpack the ironies there).  You should note that I made no childish jokes nor indulged in cheap sound effects for equally cheap laughs.  Indeed, I thought it best, for both scholarship and decorum, to entirely overlook the somewhat distasteful opening to the play and avoid any charges of juvenile prurience.  After all, this podcast has quite a reputation to uphold.