grave fathers.

4 AVOC: You might invent some other name, sir varlet.

3 AVOC: Did not the notary meet him?

VOLP: Not that I know.

4 AVOC: His coming will clear all.

2 AVOC: Yet, it is misty.

VOLT: May't please your fatherhoods--

VOLP [whispers volt.]: 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--

VOLT: How?

VOLP: Sir, to try
If you were firm, and how you stood affected.

VOLT: Art sure he lives?

VOLP: Do I live, sir?

VOLT: O me!
I was too violent.

VOLP: Sir, you may redeem it,
They said, you were possest; fall down, and seem so:
I'll help to make it good.
[voltore falls.]
--God bless the man!--
Stop your wind hard, and swell: See, see, see, see!
He vomits crooked pins! his eyes are set,
Like a dead hare's hung in a poulter's shop!
His mouth's running away! Do you see, signior?
Now it is in his belly!

CORV: Ay, the devil!

VOLP: Now in his throat.

CORV: Ay, I perceive it plain.

VOLP: 'Twill out, 'twill out! stand clear.
See, where it flies,
In shape of a blue toad, with a bat's wings!
Do you not see it, sir?

CORB: What? I think I do.

CORV: 'Tis too manifest.

VOLP: Look! he comes to himself!

VOLT: Where am I?

VOLP: Take good heart, the worst is past, sir.
You are dispossest.

1 AVOC: What accident is this!

2 AVOC: Sudden, and full of wonder!

3 AVOC: If he were
Possest, as it appears, all this is nothing.

CORV: He has been often subject to these fits.

1 AVOC: Shew him that writing:--do you know it, sir?

VOLP [WHISPERS VOLT.]: Deny it, sir, forswear it; know it not.

VOLT: Yes, I do know it well, it is my hand;
But all that it contains is false.

BON: O practice!

2 AVOC: What maze is this!

1 AVOC: Is he not guilty then,
Whom you there name the parasite?

VOLT: Grave fathers,
No more than his good patron, old Volpone.

4 AVOC: Why, he is dead.

VOLT: O no, my honour'd fathers,
He lives--

1 AVOC: How! lives?

VOLT: Lives.

2 AVOC: This is subtler yet!

3 AVOC: You said he was dead.

VOLT: Never.

3 AVOC: You said so.