CORB: The advocate's a knave,
And has a forked tongue--

2 AVOC: Speak to the point.

CORB: So is the parasite too.

1 AVOC: This is confusion.

VOLT: I do beseech your fatherhoods, read but those--
[GIVING THEM THE PAPERS.]

CORV: And credit nothing the false spirit hath writ:
It cannot be, but he's possest grave fathers.

[THE SCENE CLOSES.]

SCENE 5.7.

A STREET.

ENTER VOLPONE.

VOLP: To make a snare for mine own neck! and run
My head into it, wilfully! with laughter!
When I had newly 'scaped, was free, and clear,
Out of mere wantonness! O, the dull devil
Was in this brain of mine, when I devised it,
And Mosca gave it second; he must now
Help to sear up this vein, or we bleed dead.--
[ENTER NANO, ANDROGYNO, AND CASTRONE.]
How now! who let you loose? whither go you now?
What, to buy gingerbread? or to drown kitlings?

NAN: Sir, master Mosca call'd us out of doors,
And bid us all go play, and took the keys.

AND: Yes.

VOLP: Did master Mosca take the keys? why so!
I'm farther in. These are my fine conceits!
I must be merry, with a mischief to me!
What a vile wretch was I, that could not bear
My fortune soberly? I must have my crotchets,
And my conundrums! Well, go you, and seek him:
His meaning may be truer than my fear.
Bid him, he straight come to me to the court;
Thither will I, and, if't be possible,
Unscrew my advocate, upon new hopes:
When I provoked him, then I lost myself.

[EXEUNT.]

SCENE 5.8.

THE SCRUTINEO, OR SENATE-HOUSE.

AVOCATORI, BONARIO, CELIA, CORBACCIO, CORVINO,
COMMANDADORI, SAFFI, ETC., AS BEFORE.

1 AVOC: These things can ne'er be reconciled. He, here,
[SHEWING THE PAPERS.]
Professeth, that the gentleman was wrong'd,
And that the gentlewoman was brought thither,
Forced by her husband, and there left.

VOLT: Most true.

CEL: How ready is heaven to those that pray!

1 AVOC: But that
Volpone would have ravish'd her, he holds
Utterly false; knowing his impotence.

CORV: Grave fathers, he's possest; again, I say,
Possest: nay, if there be possession, and
Obsession, he has both.

3 AVOC: Here comes our officer.

[ENTER VOLPONE.]

VOLP: The parasite will straight be here,