ÍNDICE

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 3
1. Ben Jonson (1572-1637) ...................................................................................................... 4
2. Plays...................................................................................................................................... 5
3. Volpone................................................................................................................................. 6
3.1. General information.................................................................................................... 6
3.2. Context ......................................................................................................................... 6
3.3. Volpone’s argument .................................................................................................... 9
3.4. Analysis ........................................................................................................................ 9
3.5. The characters. .......................................................................................................... 10
3.5.1. Volpone................................................................................................................. 10
3.5.2. Mosca .................................................................................................................. 11
3.5.3. Corvino ............................................................................................................... 12
3.5.4. Bonario ............................................................................................................... 12
3.5.5. Celia .................................................................................................................... 12
3.5.6. Sir Politic Would-Be : ...................................................................................... 13
3.5.7. Lady Politic Would-Be : ................................................................................... 13
3.5.8. Peregrine: ........................................................................................................... 13
3.5.9. Nano : ................................................................................................................. 13
3.5.10. Castrone: ............................................................................................................ 13
3.5.11. Androgyno: ........................................................................................................ 14
3.6. Themes ....................................................................................................................... 14
3.6.1. Greed .................................................................................................................. 14
3.6.2. The Power of Stagecraft ................................................................................... 14
3.6.3. Parasitism........................................................................................................... 15
3.7. Symbols ...................................................................................................................... 15
3.7.1. Venice ................................................................................................................. 15
3.7.2. Animalia ............................................................................................................. 16
3.7.3. The Sacred and the Profane ............................................................................. 16
3.7.4. Disguise, Deception, and Truth ........................................................................ 17
3.7.5. "Gulling"............................................................................................................ 17
CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................................... 18
 Introduction
Volpone is a comedy play by English playwright Ben Jonson first produced in 1605–
1606, drawing on elements of city comedy and beast fable. A merciless satire of greed
and lust, it remains

When Ben Jonson wrote Volpone (c. 1605–06) he broke new ground in the English
theatre. He produced an innovative kind of high-energy, intensely theatrical comedy
which sustained both high moral seriousness and exuberant hilarity. Following the
Roman writers he admired so much, Jonson set out to make his audience think about the
troublingly subversive but exhilarating power of money and what it does to those who are
consumed by greed for it, but also to give them a very good time in the theatre.

Volpone combines its moral into a very funny, entertaining play. Jonson promises the
audience that it will ‘rub your cheeks, til red with laughter’ (Prologue). The action is fast-
paced, non-stop and demands our attention, and Jonson boldly breaks rules and generic
conventions along the way.Jonson's most-performed play, and it is ranked among the
finest Jacobean era comed
1. Ben Jonson (1572-1637)

Ben Jonson was an English dramatist, poet, and literary critic. He is

generally regarded as the second most important English dramatist, after William
Shakespeare. Born in Westminster, England in 1572 he studied at Westminster
school, where he learned the classics. He didn’t attend University, instead
becoming an apprentice bricklayer, following in his stepfather’s trade.
Disenchanted by this career, he soon left England to become a soldier in the
Netherlands with reports that he killed an enemy in single combat. He married
Ann Lewis in 1594 and they had three children, two of whom died at a young age.
Jonson returned to London in 1597, where he became an actor, before finding his
niche as a writer. His first comedy, Every Man in His Humour was presented at
the Globe Theatre in 1598. Jonson soon established a reputation as one of the
major social satirists of the English dramatic tradition. He popularised the genre
of dramatic comedy, a style that focuses on characters with traits that dominate
their personality, desires and conduct. Jonson was known for being hot-headed
and quarrelsome, arguing with actors, audiences and other writers throughout his
career. He was sent to prison as the co-author of an offensive play called, The Isle
of Dogs; he fought a duel with a fellow actor, killing him and escaping prison by
pleading the law of ‘Benefit of clergy’ where he recited bible verses, and his play
Sejanus earned him a summons before the Privy Council. At the beginning of the
reign of King James I of England in 1603, Jonson collaborated with designer Inigo
Jones on a series of Court Masques, a popular form of entertainment, for the King
and aristocracy. He wrote around 35 Masques over the next thirty years. Jonson’s
best plays were written over the next decade; Volpone or the Fox (1605), The
Alchemist (1610) and Bartholomew Fayre: A Comedy (1614) before the flop The
Devil is an Ass (1616). His health began to decline after a series of setbacks
drained his strength and damaged his reputation. The death of King James and the
accession of King Charles I in 1625 left Jonson feeling neglected by the new court.
Jonson died on 6 August 1637 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, with the
inscription, "O Rare Ben Johnson" over his grave.
 2. Plays

The Isle of Dogs, (1597)

Every Man in His Humour, (1598)

Cynthia's Revels, (1600)

The Poetaster, (1601)

Sejanus His Fall, (1603)

Eastward Ho, (1605)

Volpone or the Fox, (1605–06)

Epicoene, or the Silent Woman, (1609)

The Alchemist, (1610)

Catiline His Conspiracy, (1611)

Bartholomew Fair, (1614)

The Devil is an Ass, (1616)

The Staple of News, comedy (1626)

The New Inn, or The Light Heart, (1629)

The Magnetic Lady, or Humors Reconciled, (1632)

The Sad Shepherd, (1637)

3. Volpone

3.1.General information

Full Title · Volpone, or the Fox: A Comedy

Author · Ben Jonson
Type Of Work · Play
Genre · Comedy (with tragic undertones)
Language · English
Time And Place Written · February and March 1606; London, England
Date Of First Publication · 1607, in quarto form
Publisher · William Stansby
Narrator · The play has no narrator
Climax · Act V, scene xii, when Volpone reveals himself to the Avocatori
Protagonist · Volpone (though he disappears in Act IV)
Setting (Time) · The time of the play's writing, 1606
Setting (Place) · Venice, Italy
Point Of View · No narrator, no point of view
Falling Action · Scene V.xii: the judges sentence Volpone, Corvino, Corbaccio,
and Voltore to various punishments.
Foreshadowing · Mosca's soliloquy in III.i
Tone · Satirical, ironic in the main plot; in the subplot, varying between satirical
and farcical
Themes · Greed; the power of stagecraft; parasitism
Motifs · Disguise, deception and reality; "gulling"; the sacred and the profane
Symbols · Venice; animalia

3.2.Context
Ironically, although "William Shakespeare" is by far the better-known
name today, we know a great deal more about the life of his fellow Elizabethan
dramatist Ben Jonson. Our knowledge of his personal life comes mainly from
personal conversations conducted between the playwright and William
Drummond, the Laird of Hawthornden, in 1619, which Drummond later wrote
down. But it also reflects the fact that whereas Shakespeare chose solely to express
himself through his plays and poems, Jonson was more of a public figure, prone
to dramatic commentary on literature and philosophy, highly personalized poems
(as opposed to the mystery of Shakespeare's sonnet cycle), as well as heavy
involvement in the royal entertainments of both King James I and Charles I. In his
lifetime, he was more honored than Shakespeare and served as an advisor to young
poets until the time of his death on August 16, 1637, at the age of sixty- five.
Despite this popularity, the facts surrounding Jonson's birth remain, for the most
part, obscure. Based on evidence gathered later in his life, historians believe his
birth date to be June 11, 1572, a month after his biological father's death. His
birthplace and the names of his parents remain unknown. What is known is that
he grew up in the village of Charing Cross, which was then a mile outside the
walled City of London. Charing was home both to the townhouses of courtiers
(nobles who attended at the court of Queen Elizabeth) as well as masses of the
urban poor, living in close proximity. Though Jonson's family was by no means
wealthy, it also was not extremely poor, since the man usually identified as
Jonson's stepfather, Robert Brett, was a moderately prosperous bricklayer. As
David Riggs notes, Jonson was "surrounded by extremes of poverty and wealth
from the earliest years of his life."
A "friend," whose name is lost to history, paid for Jonson to attend Westminster
school, one of the elite schools of Elizabethan England, where Elizabeth herself
attended the school's Christmas play regularly. Attending the school greatly
widened Jonson's social and intellectual horizons, as it was the place where
England's future ruling classes were trained. Its students were either on
scholarship for academic ability, or they were sons of the nobility. As a result,
Jonson friends in later life would include many lawyers and a good share of
nobility. At the age of sixteen, he was forced to leave the school and tried his hand
at soldiering—he joined the English forces camped in the Netherlands—before
becoming apprenticed to a bricklayer in London.
The apprenticeship was terminated when Jonson decided to marry Anne Lewis.
In an era where marriage meant the termination of an apprenticeship and was
expected of men only when they had achieved some sort of economic
independence, this was an extremely rash move. But it may very well be related
to another decision Jonson made in the mid 1590s, which was a decision to devote
his life to the theater. Jonson became known as an hilariously bad actor, as well
as a violent ruffian who once killed a fellow actor without provocation, and it was
only when he tried his hand at writing plays instead of performing in them that he
began to have success.
The profession of playwriting hadn't existed at the time of Jonson's birth. It was a
product of a change in the activity of acting companies; whereas companies had
previously toured, beginning in the 1570s and 1580s they began to station
themselves in the ever-growing city of London, fast becoming the most important
city in Great Britain. Since the audience would now consist of repeat customers,
a great demand for new plays was created. As the theatre grew into an ever more
profitable industry, thanks to more and more Londoners' demands for more and
more entertainment, one began to be able support oneself by writing plays, and
playwriting became a profession (though one without a name; "playwright" wasn't
used officially until 1682, and Jonson actually used the term as one of abuse).
Jonson, with a string of popular plays such as Every Man in His Humour (and
some unpopular ones, such as Every Man out of His Humour) gradually began to
make a name for himself, establishing a reputation as a witty, intellectual
playwright, who was less romantic and more cerebral than Shakespeare (by now
a personal friend of Jonson's). He became famous and well respected even though
he had converted to Catholicism during his first time in jail (being a Catholic in
Protestant England at the time was a very unpopular thing). But in 1605, he was
arrested for co-writing a play titled Eastward Ho,which the censors interpreted
(probably correctly) as a derogatory statement on the newly crowned King James.
That year, he had also separated from his wife.
Volpone was written at the end of this extremely trying period, in the early months
of 1606. It was one of Jonson's biggest hits, and it firmly re- established him as an
important literary figure. Around the same time, he re- united with his wife. With
this wealth of personal and situational information about Jonson's life, many
scholars have made attempts to interpret the writing of Volpone as a psychological
way of resolving a fundamental conflict that we know existed within him. This
conflict was between Jonson's violent past and his fairly conservative view of life
and art, which was grounded in his classical education at Westminster. He
 idealized the countryside in such poems as To Penshurst and saw much of the city
life around him as grasping, brutish, and nasty. He viewed his art as being a sort
of moral corrective to this "publicke riot." But, as was seen in 1606, he still had
some fairly rough character traits, which were inappopriate for the voice of
classical moderation and reason. So, according to critics such as
Riggs, Volponeserves as the repudiation of what Volpone the character
symbolizes: Jonson's rambunctious, reckless side, which had nearly cost him his
marriage, livelihood, and respectability. This interpretation does not tell us
everything about Volpone, but it may help us understand Jonson's seeming delight
in portraying his quick-witted, tricky types, which may have been characters he
identified with on an emotional level. But intellectually, he identified with Celia
and her value system. The conflict between the two value systems—one full of
desire and greed and another based on Christian morality and reason—is central
to Volpone and seems to have been a conflict with which Jonson dealt personally.

3.3.Volpone’s argument

The play is dedicated to the universities of Oxford and Cambridge, both of which
had recently awarded Jonson honorary doctorates at the time of the play's writing.
He briefly discusses the moral intentions of the play and its debt to classical drama.
In the Argument, Jonson provides a brief summary of the play's plot in the form
of an acrostic on Volpone's name. The prologue then introduces the play to the
viewing audience, informing them that "with a little luck," it will be a hit; Jonson
ends by promising that the audience's cheeks will turn red from laughter after
viewing his work.
3.4.Analysis
These opening parts of the play, before we are introduced to the action, may seem
superfluous. But they help us understand the play in several ways. First, in the
banal sense; the Argument, as Jonson terms it, provides in brief encapsulated form
the premise of the play, a premise that will be fully introduced in the first scene.
The Dedication, however, gives us a clue as to Jonson's intentions in
writing Volpone.First of all, he is intent on writing a "moral" play. By taking to
task those "poetasters" (his derogatory term for an inferior playwright) who have
disgraced the theatrical profession with their immoral work, Jonson highlights the
 moral intentions of his play. His play will make a moral statement. And it will do
so in line with the traditions of drama followed by classical dramatists, that is, the
dramatists of ancient Greece. This connection to the past further indicates that the
play we are about to read (or see) is a work of serious intellectual and moral
weight.
But, in the Prologue, we see a different side of Jonson. This side of Jonson is
boastful—this play was written in five weeks, says Jonson, all the jokes are mine,
I think it's going to be a huge hit, and you are all going to laugh hysterically until
your cheeks turn red. The Prologue sets a boisterous tone that the rest of the play
will follow. So in these opening passages, Jonson begins to mix a serious
intellectual and moral message with a boisterous, light- hearted and entertaining
tone, reinforcing the explicit promise he makes in the Prologe "to mix profit with
your pleasure." In other words, says Jonson, Volpone will be a work that will
educate you but also entertain you at the same time.

3.5.The characters.

3.5.1. Volpone
Volpone is the protagonist of the play. His name means "The Fox" in Italian.
Jonson usedhim as an instrument of satire of money-obsessed society, and he
seems to share inJonson's satiric interpretation of the events. He is lustful,
raffish, and greedy for pleasure. He is a creature of passion, continually
looking to find and attain new forms of pleasure, whatever the consequences
may be. He is also energetic and has an unusual gift for rhetoric. He worships
his money, all of which he has acquired through cons, such as theone he plays
on Voltore, Corbaccio, and Corvino. Volpone has no children, but he
hassomething of a family: his parasite, Mosca, his dwarf, Nano, his eunuch,
Castrone, andhis hermaphrodite, Androgyno. Mosca is his only true
confidante. Volpone hates to makemoney through honest labour or cold, he
loves making it in clever, deceitful ways. Thisdynamic in his character shapes
our reaction to him throughout the play. At times, thishedonism seems fun,
engaging, entertaining, and even morally valuable, such as when heis engaged
in the con on his fortune hunters. But his attempted seduction of Celia revealsa
 darker side to his hedonism when it becomes an attempted rape. The incident
makeshim, in the moral universe of the play, a worthy target of satire. Through
the play, welearn that he is the one who makes the satire but the satire
eventually turns back on him, when he becomes a victim of Mosca's "Fox-
trap." The reason he is ensnared by Mosca isthat he cannot resist one final
gloat at his dupes, oblivious to the fact that in doing so, hehands over his entire
estate to Mosca.
This lack of rational forethought and commitment
to his own sensual impulses is characteristic of Volpone.
Therefore, he has threeweaknesses that might make his ‘plots’ fail: the first is
his lust for Celia, the second is hisoverconfident behavior, and the last is his
complete trust in Mosca.

3.5.2. Mosca
Mosca is Volpone's parasite, a combination of his slave, his servant and his
lackey. He isthe person who continually executes Volpone's ideas and the one
who comes up with thenecessary lie whenever needed. In the opening acts,
Mosca appears to be exactly what heis described as: a clinging, servile
parasite, who only exists for Volpone and throughVolpone. In other words,
he exists to serve Volpone, and all that Volpone wants he wants. But in Act
Three, we have the beginning of his assertion of self-identity, when he
beginsto grow confident in his abilities. But then this confidence again is left
unvoiced, andMosca seems to go back to being Volpone's faithful servant,
helping him get out of thetroublesome situation with Bonario and Celia.
Mosca himself is possessed by greed, andhe attempts to move out of his
role as parasite to the role of great beast himself. But hisattempt fails, as
Volpone exposes them both. Though initially (and for most of the play)
he behaves in a servile manner towards Volpone, Mosca conceals a growingi
ndependence he gains as a result of the incredible resourcefulness he shows in
aiding andabetting Volpone's confidence game. Mosca's growing confidence,
and awareness that the die before Volpone even has a chance to bequeath
himhis wealth. He has a hearing problem and betrays no sign of concern for
Volpone, delighting openly in (fake) reports of Volpone's worsening
symptoms. He goes as far as totestify against his own son. He is finally
 punished, sent to a monastery, and forced to turnhis estate over to his son,
Bonario.

3.5.3. Corvino
A greedy, rich merchant and an extremely cruel and dishonorable character,
Corvino isCelia's jealous husband. He frequently threatens to do disgusting
acts of physical violenceto her and her family in order to gain control
over her. Yet he is more concerned withfinancial gain than with her
faithfulness, seeing her, in essence, as a piece of property. Corvino
is another one of the "carrion-birds" circling Volpone. Corvino is punished in
theend for offering up his wife, which results in her returning to her father,
with her dowrytripled. Corviono is the third of the "carrion-birds" circling
Volpone.

3.5.4. Bonario
The son of Corbaccio. Bonario is an upright youth who remains loyal to his
father evenwhen his father perjures against him in court.

His honesty and his desire to do right makehim one of the more righteous
characters in the play. He heroically rescues Celia fromVolpone and
represents bravery and honor, qualities which the other characters seem to
lack. However, perhaps because he believes so strongly in good, he is too
trusting of others and is exploited as a result.

3.5.5. Celia
Celia is the wife of Corvino, who is extremely beautiful, enough to drive both
Volponeand Corvino to distraction. She is absolutely committed to her
husband, even though hetreats her horribly, and has a faith in God and sense
of honor, qualities which seem to belacking in both Corvino and Volpone.
These qualities guide her toward self-control. She’salso known by her self-
denial. This makes her a perfect foil for Volpone, since her self-control
exposes his complete lack thereof, no more clearly than in Volpone's
attemptedseduction of her. The turning point of the play comes when she says
"no" to Volpone'sadvances, thus denying him the lecherous pleasures he
describes in his seduction speech. Celia seems willing to do anything to avoid
dishonor, too ready to sacrifice herself to be believable. Her willingness to
 subject herself to Corvino's harsh dictates and abuse maymake her seem more
weak than strong. But she has an inner moral sense, indicated by thefact that
she refuses Volpone against her husband's express wishes. Jonson again
choosesa name with symbolic meaning for Celia: it derives from the Latin
word caelum, meaning"sky" or "heaven"

3.5.6. Sir Politic:

An English knight who resides in Venice. Sir Politic represents the danger of
moral corruption that English travelers face when they go abroad to the
continent, especially to Italy. He occupies the central role in the subplot, which
centers on the relationship between himself and Peregrine, another English
traveler much less gullible than the good knight. Sir Politic is also imaginative,
coming up with ideas for moneymaking schemes such as using onions to
detect the plague, as well as the idea of making a detailed note of every single
action he performs in his diary, including his urinations.
3.5.7. Lady Politic:
The Lady Politic Would-be is portrayed as a would-be courtesan. She was the
impetus for the Would-bes move to Venice, because of her desire to learn the
ways of the sophisticated Venetians. She is very well read and very inclined
to let anyone know this, or anything else about her. She is extremely vain.
3.5.8. Peregrine:
Peregrine is a young English traveler who meets and befriends Sir Politic
Would- be upon arriving in Venice. Peregrine is amused by the gullible
Would-be, but is also easily offended, as demonstrated by his adverse reaction
to Lady Politic Would-be's suggestive comments.
3.5.9. Nano :
Nano, as his named in Italian indicates ("nano" means "dwarf"), is a dwarf.
He is also Volpone's fool, or jester, keeping Volpone amused with songs and
jokes written by Mosca.

3.5.10. Castrone:
 The only notable fact about Castrone is that his name means eunuch
("castrone" means "eunuch" in Italian). There is not much else to say about
Castrone, as he has no speaking lines whatsoever.
3.5.11. Androgyno:
"Androgyno" means "hermaphrodite" in Italian, and as in the case of Nano and
Castrone, the name rings true. Androgyno apparently possesses the soul of
Pythagoras, according to Nano, which has been in gradual decline ever since
it left the ancient mathematician's body.

3.6.Themes
3.6.1. Greed

Volpone's satire is directed against "avarice," which can be thought of as

greed that extends not just to money but also to all objects of human desire.
The play's main thesis is stated by Volpone himself, "What a rare
punishment / Is avarice to itself." The punishment—and the central irony
of the play—is that while greed drives the search for money, power, and
respect, it ends up making everyone in the play look foolish, contemptible,
and poorer, both spiritually and financially. A similar idea is stated by both
Celia, when she asks in III.vii, "Whither [where] is shame fled human
breasts?" and by the judge at the end of the play in his plea that the
audience should "learn" from the play what happens to those who succumb
to greed, emphasizing that the play's stance on greed is a didactic one,
intended to teach the audience what greed's real consequences are.
Volpone himself starts out as an instrument of this lesson—he dupes the
Corvino, Corbaccio and Voltore into parting with their goods in the hope
of inheriting his—but ends up an object of the lesson as well, for
succumbing to his greedy want for sensual pleasure.
3.6.2. The Power of Stagecraft

There is a dichotomy in the play, never entirely resolved, between the

devices of stagecraft and the conveyance of moral truth. In other words,
there is a tension between the play itself (a play which, Jonson hopes, will
be of moral value to those who see it) and what goes on in the play, in
which the devices of stagecraft that are involved in the play's actual
 production are a source of deceit, confusion, and moral corruption. In other
words, Volpone does not merely lie, nor he does not merely deceive; he
makes an entire production out of his game, using a special eye ointment
to simulate an eye infection, creating a character (the sick Volpone) using
wardrobe, make-up, and props. He too seems to share the intention to
expose moral folly, with the playwright, Jonson; but this is in the end seen
to be another illusion. Likewise, Mosca and Voltore put on a production to
convince the judges of their innocence. They use rhetoric and poetry to tell
a story, complete with a shocking "surprise witness" and the graphic use
of imagery (the appearance of "impotent" Volpone). The play thus exposes
us to many different forms of theatrical illusion as methods of lying,
perhaps in the hope of allowing us to better discern which forms of theater
are sensationalistic, unhelpful, and inaccurate in their portrayal of reality.
3.6.3. Parasitism

"Everyone's a parasite" to paraphrase Mosca (III.i), and over the course of

the play he is proved right, in the sense that everyone tries to live off of the
wealth or livelihood of others, without doing any "honest toil" of their own.
Corvino, Corbaccio and Voltore all try to inherit a fortune from a dying
man; and Volpone himself has built his fortune on cons such as the one he
is playing now. Parasitism, thus portrayed, is not a form of laziness or
desperation, but a form of superiority. The parasite lives by his wits, and
feeds off of others, by skillfully manipulating their credulity and goodwill.

3.7. Symbols
3.7.1. Venice
As the seat of greed, corruption, and decadence, at least according to the
prevailing prejudices, Venice was the beneficiary of years of stereotype in
English drama. Italians in general were seen as sensuous, decadent beings,
thanks to their extremely sophisticated culture, history of Machiavellian
politicians (Lorenzo de Medici, Cesare Borgia, Machiavelli himself) and
beautiful (and often erotic) love poetry. Though not things considered
particularly awful today, this type of decadence made English people wary
of being infected with immorality, and Venetians were seen as the worst
 of the bunch. The direct influence of the "power of Venice" to corrupt can
best be seen in the Sir Politic Would-be subplot, where the English knight
Sir Politic "goes Venetian" and becomes a lying would-be thief. But the
Venetian setting probably made the story more believable for most English
audiences, signifying the fascination of the play with disguise and deceit,
though also, perhaps against Jonson's intentions, distancing them from the
play's moral message, by placing the greed in a historic far away place
traditionally associated with greed, instead of right in the heart of London.
3.7.2. Animalia
There is a "fable" running throughout the play, through the associations
the characters' names create with animals. It is very simple and tells the
tale of a cunning "Fox" (Volponein Italian), circled by a mischievous "Fly"
( Mosca in Italian), who helps the Fox trick several carrion-birds—a
vulture (Voltore), a crow (Corvino) and a raven (Corbaccio) into losing
their feathers (their wealth). The animal imagery emphasizes the theme of
"parasitism" in the play, where one life form feeds off of another. And it
should also be remembered that fables are tales with simple moral
messages, told for a didactic purpose. Though much more
complex, Volpone, at its heart shares the same purpose, making the use of
"fable-like" symbolism appropriate and helpful in understanding the
meaning of the play.

3.7.3. The Sacred and the Profane

Volpone, both in his initial speech in Act I and in his seduction speech of
Act III, mixes religious language and profane subject matter to a startling
poetic effect. In Act I the subject of his worship is money; in Act III it is
Celia, or perhaps her body, that inspires prayer-like language. As a foil
against this, Celia pleads for a distinction to be restored between the "base"
and the "noble," (in other words, between the profane—that which is
firmly rooted in our animal natures, and the sacred—that which is divine
about humans. Through their respective fates, the play seems to endorse
Celia's position, though Jonson invests Volpone's speeches with a great
 deal of poetic energy and rhetorical ornamentation that make his position
attractive and rich, which is again, another source of tension in the play.
3.7.4. Disguise, Deception, and Truth
Jonson creates a complex relationship among disguise, deception, and
truth in the play. Disguise sometimes serves simply to conceal, as it does
when Peregrine dupes Sir Politic Would-be. But sometimes it reveals inner
truths that a person's normal attire may conceal. Volpone, for example,
publicly reveals more of his "true self" (his vital, healthy self) when he
dresses as Scoto Mantua; and Scoto's speeches seem to be filled with
authorial comment from Jonson himself. Furthermore, disguise is seen to
exert a certain force and power all of its own; by assuming one, people run
the risk of changing their identity, of being unable to escape the disguise.
This is certainly the case for Mosca and Volpone in Act V, whose
"disguised" identities almost supersede their actual ones.
3.7.5. "Gulling"
Gulling means "making someone into a fool." The question that the play
teaches us to ask is who is being made a fool by whom?. Volpone plays
sick to make the legacy-hunters fools, but Mosca plays the "Fool" (the
harmless assistant and entertainer) in order to make Volpone into a fool.
To make someone else into a fool is both the primary method characters
have for asserting power over one another and the primary way Jonson
brings across his moral message: the characters in the play who are made
into fools—Corbaccio, Corvino, Voltore, Volpone—are the characters
whose morality we are supposed to criticize.
 CONCLUSION
 In the Argument, the two main characters of the play are first introduced. Volpone.
Right away, the reader or viewer is alerted to the characters' status as allegorical,
which invites us to consider the play as much as a fable as an entertainment.
This suits Jonson's stated moral intention. he very existence of the Argument also
reinforces this moral intention. Jonson describes the main action of the play before
we see it; thus nothing that follows should come as much of a surprise. The
Argument transforms a first reading (or viewing) of the play into a second reading.
 Among the main themes in the Jhonson’s play are the greed, the power of the
stagecraft and parasitism where the first all the characters have the desire of have
more and more food, money or other things than aren’t necessary ; in the second
the play thus exposes us to many different forms of theatrical illusion as methods
of lying and finally in the third where the parasite lives by his wits, and feeds off
of others, by skillfully manipulating their credulity and goodwill and all the
characters are considered as parasits.
 There are symbols in Volpone like a Venice Italians in general were seen as
sensuous, decadent beings because Venetians were seen as the worst of the bunch;
the Animalia that represents the associations the characters' names create with
animals. There is a "fable" running throughout the play; the sacred and the
propane where are mixed during the dialogues among the characters; disguise that
can people run the risk of changing their identity and guilling to make someone
else into a fool is both the primary method characters have for asserting power
over one another