Ben Jonson's Volpone

Jonson's prologue to Volpone states its purpose as "To mix profit with your pleasure," or entertain the audience while at the same time teaching it a valuable lesson (Jonson Prologue: 8). Indeed, Jonson takes on a sort of braggart tone in the prologue, proclaming that "he dares give [his detractors] five lives to mend [his play] / 'Tis known five weeks fully penned it / From his own hand" (Prologue: 15-17)., yet he still managed to include a message of morality in his play.

Ironically enough, in the first two acts of Volpone, immorality seems to be an abundant theme, highlighted by the fact that all seven of the deadly sins appear within these acts. In 1.1, Volpone demonstrates avarice through his lying and pretending to be ill so that "women and men" will "bring [him] presents, send [him] plate, coin, jewels" in an attempt to win over his estate (1.1: 77, 78). Volpone also demonstrates gluttony, wanting these riches even though he already has "hoards" of "sacred treasure in [his] blessèd room" (1.1: 7, 13). In addition, his slothfulness comes out through the implication that he earns his money dishonestly, "[using] no trae, no venture / ...[winding] no earth with plowshares; [fattening] no beasts / to feed the shambles" (1.1: 33-15). Volpone exhibits lust in 1.5, when he lusts after the wife of Corvino after Mosca's decription of her beauty, declaring that "[He] must see her" and that "[He] will go see her, though but at her window" (1.5: 123, 127).

Corvino provides examples of pride, envy, and wrath when he discovers that his wife, Celia, has "[thrown] down her handkerchief" to Volpone disguised as the merchant Scoto Mantua (2.3: stage directions at 217). Corvino admonishes his wife, showing his own pride when he claims that she's has brought "Death to [his] honor, with the city's fool" (2.3: 1). His envy of Celia's interaction with another man becomes apparent when he accuses her of "[Fanning her] favors forth / To give [her] hot spectators satisfaction," asking if she was "enamored on [Scoto's] copper rings" (2.3: 8-9, 11). Corvino's acts wrathfully when he yells to his wife that "[She] would be damned ere [she] did this," calling her a "whore" and threatening to obtain "justice" through "the murder / Of father, mother, brother, all [her] race" (2.3: 26, 29, 27-28). Indeed, in addition to these, countless other examples exist throughout these first two acts of each of the seven deadly sins, believed by many to be the pinnacle of immorality.

So how do these acts, drenched in sinfulness and immorality, support Jonson's promise in the prologue for a moral lesson to be imparted on his readers through Volpone? I'm assuming this will be made apparently only through the completion of the play's reading. In The Argument preceding his prologue, Jonson cleverly spells out his play's purpose with an acronym of its title, and the last line two lines assure the reader that even though "New tricks for safety are sought" and "thrive," eventually, "Each tempts th'other again, and all are sold" (Argument: 6-7). In other words, although the Volpone's characters are acting in sinful deceit throughout the first two acts of the play, in the end, the moral lesson will be taught through the downfall that each character's immorality brings to the others.