Volpone, the protagonist, is the cunning fox who tried to lure his prey by pretending to be sick and dying.

Mosca,
his parasite, is flesh fly, which feeds on everything it can sit upon. Appropriately, he tries to exploit the three legacy
hunters and feeds on the sickness of his master.

The three legacy hunters owe their names to predatory birs. Voltore is a vulture. He is gifted with predatorily
oriented eyesight. He does not have any family ties. Corbaccio is a raven. A raven was notorious for its hostility ot
its young ones, if they did not resemble it. In this respect, Corbaccio like a raven tries to disinherit his own son
Bonario, who is so different from his father. Similarly, Corvino is crow,. He is greedy of harvest.

In the sub-plot, Sir and Lady Politic Would-be derive their names from parrots. Like a parrot, Sir Politic has no
imagination, but he has a capacity to imitate others. Lady Would-be exhausts everyone with her ceaseless chatter.
Her imitation of the Venetian fashion also fits with her name and character.

The punishment to these beast-like characters is given according to their nature and crimes. Volpone is crippled by
iron-chains in prison. Voltore is exiled from the society of learned men and from Venice. Corbaccio is confined to a
monastery, while Corvino is to be rowed about in Venice. Sir Politic becomes a turtle when he hides himself in the
tortoise-shell. Peregrine, like a hawk, will take the tortoise high in the sky and then throw it on the earth to break the
shell.

To conclude, the great satirist and reformer Ben Jonson scolded men for correction. He laughs at men not with
sympathy but his laughter is curative. The beast fabletechnique helps him to magnify and attack greed, hypocrisy,
treachery, flattery, lust and so on.

2.Volpone whilst being a satirical comedy can be considered a beast play, as all the principle characters
are people, but have animal names and display characteristics of the animals they represent. Jonson was
a Renaissance dramatist and poet and was concerned with classical precedent. In Volpone, Jonson
adapts a traditional beast fable that is found in Aesop’s fables and presents a moral ending. Jonson refers
to Aesop’s fable of the fox that cunningly tricks a crow into dropping its cheese, in act one scene two.

As Volpone tricks Voltore into giving him “A piece of plate” (P115), he remarks to Mosca “and not a fox /
Stretched on the earth, with fine delusive sleights, / Mocking a gaping crow?” (P115).I think this reference
to the fable suggests how easily Volpone will take wealth from the other characters. Jonson refers to the
same Aesop’s fable again in act five, scene eight. “A witty merchant, the fine bird, Corvino, / That have
such moral emblems on your name, / Should not have sung your shame, and dropped your cheese, / To
let the Fox laugh at your emptiness.

” (P271)I think Jonson illustrates the fable directly in this quotation as the fox is laughing at the crow for
dropping his presents and singing his out his declaration of cuckoldry to the court.The animal imagery in
Volpone is very obvious immediately to the audience as he names most of the characters after birds or
animals and suggests the depravity inherent in each of the individuals, whist at the same time creating
caricatures of them. I think in doing this Jonson wanted to draw attention to the animalistic side of society
and show how people’s behaviour can be no better than animals, which prey on each other. I think
Jonson’s naming of the characters suggests what the play goes on to prove, that human beings can
easily reduce themselves to animals as they lose their values through greed.Jonson’s naming of the
character Volpone, Italian for fox, creates an instant image of the character. I think that Jonson’s
metaphor creates an image of a sly, cunning character.

Volpone asks Mosca for “[his] furs, and night caps” (P31). In staging the play, I would dress Volpone in
reddish brown clothes trimmed with fur to complement his character, but not to distract from the fact that
he is still a man and not a fox. I think Jonson is saying that he is not an animal but has lost his human
qualities. His name leaves the audience in no doubt as to the expected behaviour of Volpone, that he will
as a fox, outwit his associates. He confesses to Mosca that “[he glories] in the cunning purchase of [his]
wealth” (P21).Volpone’s parasite Mosca, Italian for fly, presents a very different animal imagery from
Volpone.

As his name suggests he circles the other characters and is quick to jump to his next feed. He is
completely aware of his parasitical nature and in his soliloquy, Mosca praises himself for his skill and his
art as a parasite. “I am so limber. O! your parasite / Is a most precious thing, dropped from above,”
(P123). Jonson adds to the imagery of a fly in his style of writing of Mosca’s soliloquy. His speech darts
around like a fly with many of the lines ending in a buzzing sound.

I think in this speech Jonson is emphasising the parasitical nature of Mosca and the relationship between
the fox and the fly.Jonson uses a simile of a snake to illustrate true intention of Mosca. Mosca tells the
audience that “I could skip / Out of my skin, now, like a subtle snake,” (P123). I think this imagery
illustrates Mosca’s growth as a character, as like a snake he is growing out of his old skin as he feels
more important and successful. I think Jonson also uses the snake to symbolise the cunning snake in the
Garden of Eden, which deceived Eve and led to the fall of humanity.

Mosca will deceive everyone and lead to the downfall of all the animalistic characters in the play.Jonson
introduces the beginning of Volpone’s visitors with the metaphor of birds feeding on carrion to illustrate
the aims of the visitors. Volpone announces, “Begin their visitation! Vulture, kite, / Raven, and gor-crow,
all my birds of prey, / That think me leaving carcass,” (P31). The names of the characters function as
metaphors, which create images of their true natures. The lawyer Voltore, named for the vulture is the first
of the visitors hoping to feed off Volpone.

In the staged play I would dress Voltore in his black lawyer’s gown, the drapes of the gown representing
the large black wings of the vulture.Jonson names the other two legacy hunters after carrion birds.
Corbaccio the raven and Corvino the crow, visit Volpone after the vulture in their natural order of the
largest most powerful bird first. Voltore who has more power as a lawyer, and then the smaller raven and
lastly the crow visit the carcass. Volpone announces Corbaccio’s arrival by “The vulture’s gone, and the
old raven’s come.

” (P43).I think Jonson also shows the hierarchy of the legacy hunters in the bird imagery.The other
character Jonson openly names after a bird is Peregrine. The metaphor of his name creates a very
different image from the legacy hunters, the carrion feeding birds. The Peregrine Falcon has historically
symbolised power, speed and pride. I think the role of the imagery Jonson creates in Peregrine is to
contrast with the other characters that feed off carrion, whilst Peregrine, the Englishman is a skilful
hunter.

Jonson shows a contrasting character in Sir Politic Would-Be, the other Englishman in Volpone.
Abbreviated to Pol, he is a parrot and is anything but politic, as is Lady Would-Be who chatters
incessantly in the manner of a parrot.This imagery highlights the comic angle of these two characters and
also emphasises that their chatter is not to be taken seriously. Sir Politic admits to Peregrine in act five,
scene four that he parrots his conversational subject matter from play scripts. “Alas, sir. I have none but
notes / Drawn out of play-books” (P255).

Ironically when Sir Politic wants to hide, his disguise is that of a tortoise. Symbolically he is large and slow
and unable to swiftly escape. As he leaves the play Sir Politic promises to “…

clime for ever, / Creeping, with house on back; and think it well, / To shrink my poor head in my politic
shell.” (P261) By this metaphor I think Jonson is suggesting Sir Politic will from now on keep his head
down and use discretion rather that pretend to be wise.Jonson also uses animal imagery as the
characters verbally attack each other. Corvino, when attempting to prostitute Celia, accuses her of being
“An arrant locust” (P157) as like a plague of locusts she is ruining his chance of wealth, which is
Volpone’s fortune. As Celia is about to weep Corvino tells her that she is a “Crocodile, that hast thy tears
prepared, / Expecting how thou’lt bid ’em flow” (P157).

I think Jonson is referring to the crocodile in the fable that cries tears whilst killing his victim. Jonson uses
animal imagery to debase Celia in Corvino’s attack on her in the courtroom and also Corbaccio’s verbal
abuse of his son.Corvino describes Celia as being “more than a partridge” and that she “neighs like a
jennet” (P213). Jonson uses the imagery of a partridge as it was traditionally thought to be lustful as was
the jennet. Corbaccio accuses his son of being a “Monster of men, swine, goat, wolf” (P211). Ironically in
this metaphor Corbaccio is accusing Bonario of being greedy, unclean and wanting everything for himself
when that was his own motivation.

He is also by comparing him to a goat, accusing Bonario of being lecherous.Jonson uses animal imagery
to identify the legacy hunters, and as Lady Would-Be joins the group of hopefuls, Jonson places her
amongst the animals as a she-wolf. As Volpone invents his death he tells Mosca that “I shall have
instantly my vulture, crow, / Raven, come flying hither on the news, / To peck for carrion, my she-wolf and
all”. (P235)I think Jonson is illustrating that Lady Would-Be is no longer a chattering parrot but has now
become one of the greedy animals hoping to feed from the death of another.As Volpone hears his
punishment and is led aside his final line is “This is called mortifying of a fox” (P297).

I think that Jonson uses this quintuple pun to provide different images of the end of the fox. It is the
humiliation of Volpone, bringing the fox to his death, tenderising animal meat or teaching sinners by
punishment.At the end of Volpone, Jonson reinforces his moral message through animal imagery that
greed and wrongdoing will want more and more until it destroys itself. As the characters are taken away
to be punished the 1st Avocatore reminds the audience that “Mischeifs feed / Like beasts, till they be fat /
and then they bleed” (P299).