Aubrey Beardsley:
Volpone Adoring His Treasures (1898)
Good morning to the day; and next, my gold:
Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.
I.
Ben Jonson's brilliant comic play Volpone (1606) opens with a very famous scene of gold veneration that is worth reproducing in full:
A ROOM IN VOLPONE'S HOUSE.
ENTER VOLPONE AND MOSCA.
VOLPONE:
Good morning to the day; and next, my gold:
Open the shrine, that I may see my Saint.
MOSCA WITHDRAWS THE CURTAIN REVEALING PILES OF GOLD,
PLATE, JEWELS, ETC.
Hail the world's soul, and mine! More glad than is
The teeming earth to see the long'd-for sun
Peep through the horns of the celestial Ram,
Am I, to view thy splendour darkening his;
That lying here, amongst my other hoards,
Shew'st like a flame by night; or like the day
Struck out of chaos, when all darkness fled
Unto the centre. O thou son of Sol,
But brighter than thy father, let me kiss,
With adoration, thee, and every relick
Of sacred treasure, in this blessed room.
Well did wise poets, by thy glorious name,
Title that age which they would have the best;
Thou being the best of things: and far transcending
All style of joy, in children, parents, friends,
Or any other waking dream on earth:
Thy looks when they to Venus did ascribe,
They should have given her twenty thousand Cupids;
Such are thy beauties and our loves!
Dear saint,
Riches, the dumb god, that giv'st all men tongues;
That canst do nought, and yet mak'st men do all things;
The price of souls; even hell, with thee to boot,
Is made worth heaven. Thou art virtue, fame,
Honour, and all things else. Who can get thee,
He shall be noble, valiant, honest, wise - [1]
II.
There are many things I love about this speech: for one thing, Volpone's is a profoundly cynical and materialist philosophy, which imagines even the anima mundi in chemical-elemental (non-spritual) terms. This is to immediately challenge all those idealistic thinkers from Plato to Hegel who identified the world-soul as a force of vital intelligence which is accesible to (because self-identical with) human reason.
The Gnostics may, like Volpone, have also posited gold as the essence of all that exists, but for them this was alchemical allegory; for them, gold was not a metal gifted to mankind from beyond the stars in an age before life itself, it was rather the Light Soul to be contrasted with the dead matter within which it is imprisoned.
Gold may have been recognised as the noblest of all noble metals - and their origin - but it is still regarded with contempt by those whose real concern is with the inner gold (i.e. the spark of divinity) within each of us. Volpone may use religious language - open the shrine that I may see my saint - but he does so mockingly, that is, in a knowingly idolatrous manner.
And when Volpone expresses a desire to kiss his gold, we are reminded that there is also an erotic aspect to his gold fetish. However, unlike Auric Goldfinger - whose case we discussed here - Volpone doesn't desire gold in a perverse manner and, ultimately, I don't think he is guilty of either greed or lust; what he does, in fact, is exploit the vices of others.
For as he confesses to his man-servant, confidant, and fellow-schemer, Mosca: "I glory more in the cunning purchase of my wealth / Than in the glad possession ..."
This line is crucial, I think, in understanding Volpone's character - and my attraction to him; for he reminds me of the Embezzler, played by Malcolm McLaren in The Great Rock 'n' Roll Swindle (1980); a man who enjoys manipulating events, exploiting the gullible, and defrauding the rich. Yes, he wishes to generate cash from chaos, but it's the swindle itself that most excites his imagination.
Notes
[1] I'm quoting from Ben Jonson's Volpone as found freely online as a Project Gutenberg eBook: click here.
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