The Devil is an Ass

by Ben Jonson, alanmapstone (Narrator), Sonia (Narrator)

An inferior devil, Pug, asks Satan to send him to Earth to tempt men to Evil. But when Pug arrives in 1616 London and sets himself at the Squire Fabian Fitzdottrel, he finds Fabian currently beset by con men, cheats, connivers, thieves, villains, and seductresses - a delightful mix of cunning criminality in a world that already has far more vice in it than anything Pug is prepared to offer. - Summary by ToddHW

Cast list:
Satan, the great Devil: alanmapstone
Pug, the less Devil: Sonia
Iniquity, the Vice: Nemo
Fabian Fitzdottrel, a Squire of Norfolk: Tomas Peter
Meercraft, the Projector: Hamlet
Everill, his Champion: Algy Pug
Wittipol, a young Gallant: ToddHW
Eustace Manly, his Friend: Chuck Williamson
Engine, a Broker: Rob Board
Trains, the Projector's Man: Jason in Panama
Thomas Gilthead, a Goldsmith: Caleb Tol
Plutarchus, his Son: Eva Davis
Sir Paul Eitherside, a Lawyer, and Justice: Beth Thomas
Ambler, Gentle-Usher to Lady Tailbush: Kurt
Sledge, a Smith, the Constable: Joseph Tabler
Shackles, Keeper of Newgate: Bruce Kachuk
Mrs. Frances Fitzdottrel: Sandra Schmit
Lady Eitherside: Leanne Yau
Lady Tailbush, the Lady Projectress: Linda Olsen Fitak
Pitfall, her Woman: Availle
Serjant: Roger Melin
Keeper 1: Victor Villarraza
Keeper 2: Adriana Sacciotto
Keeper 3: TJ Burns
Keeper 4: Owen Cook
Stage Directions: sawasawaya and: Elizabeth Martinson
Edited By: ToddHW

Genres: Plays

3 pages, Audiobook

First published January 1, 1616

About the author

Benjamin Jonson was an English Renaissance dramatist, poet and actor. A contemporary of William Shakespeare, he is best known for his satirical plays, particularly Volpone, The Alchemist, and Bartholomew Fair, which are considered his best, and his lyric poems. A man of vast reading and a seemingly insatiable appetite for controversy, Jonson had an unparalleled breadth of influence on Jacobean and Caroline playwrights and poets. A house in Dulwich College is named after him.

See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ben_Jonson

Reviews

[Gill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very long and crammed with incidents, but the core concept, of a demon given twenty-four hours in contemporary London to do as much damage as he can, is amusing. Inevitably, as it's Jonson, the demon fails, as humans are far too corrupt and nasty for him to make any difference. Lots of cross-dressing and embezzlement; it needs to be heard or, better, seen, to make sense of it.

Read as part of the Shakespeare Institute's 2019 readathon: #Websterthon.

And read again as part of the "Extra Mile" SI online readathon in the grim Covid-19 afflicted autumn of 2020. A mere four hours to read it - Jonson wasn't very well-acquainted with the concept of brevity.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well, this was my first run-in with Jonson, and it provided many of the pleasures and difficulties I imagined it would.

In its profound simplicity, the premise approaches genius. A minor devil by the name of Pug begs of Satan a month away from Hell to make mischief in London, but domineering Satan (who the charming Pug calls "chief," always with a pleading urgency in his voice), grants him only one day. Pug, with no time to waste, quickly casts his lot with a foolish nobleman named Fabian Fitzdottrel. Poor Pug! Fitzdottrel is the greediest, stupidest, and most gullible, vain, jealous, and violent master a servant could find. After a long and frantic day of witnessing man's inhumanity to man (including endless sexual triangulation around Fabian's wife Frances, the infinite schemes of the conniving, proto-capitalist Meercraft, and the everyday, hifalutan chauvanism of upperclass bullies like Everill, Wittipol, and Ambler) Pug wants nothing more than for Satan to take him back home; as evening falls and Pug is confined to a cell in Newgate Prison, he has all night to cry out for just that. The world of men must've seemed dreadful, tragic, and strange indeed to poor Pug. Humanity proves too wicked for this little devil.

In its strongest moments, The Devil is An Ass feels like a forgotten masterpiece. We have Wittipol, the assertive and slightly brutish suitor who seeks Frances Fitzdottrel's bed, in language which may legitimately palpitate the heart:

On the first sight I lov'd you: since which time,
Though I have travell'd, I have been in travel
More for this second blessing of your Eyes.

The conman Meercraft is slippery and witty in the extreme. A seedy air of ruination follows him, whether he's selling leather made of dogs' skin, or speculating upon tracts of fallow wetland--which he swears will turn a profit, but only once their waters are drained. In his money-questing, his manifold disguises, and the dubious company he keeps, mystery and danger follow him wherever he goes.

There are few characters in this play who do not dip their toes into wickedness. Even Pug, who looks positively cherubic compared to some of these metropolitan villains, in one scene makes a kinky and feverish pass at Frances Fitzdottrel:

Dear delicate Mistris, I am your Slave,
Your little Worm, that loves you: your fine Monkey;
Your Dog, your Jack, your Pug, that longs to be
Stil'd o' your Pleasures.

The play holds some of the familiar pleasures of Renaissance drama, too. How delightful to meet jailers with such self-descriptive names as "Sledge" and "Shackles!" And, in eavesdropping upon a group of ladies cataloging the material components of their beauty routines, we are treated to some of Jonson's long, impressive lists, so full of colorful juxtaposition and eclectic words of hetergeneous origin:

Water of Gourdes, of Radish, the white Beans,
Flowers of Glass, of Thistles, Rose-marine,
Raw Honey, Mustard-seed, and Bread dough-bak'd,
The Crums o' Bread, Goats-milk, and Whites of Eggs,
Campheere, and Lilly-roots, the Fat of Swans,
Marrow of Veal, white Pidgeons, and Pine-kernels,
The Seeds of Nettles, Purse'line, and Hares-gall.

But one gets the sense that Jonson's focus drifted away from him at times. The Devil is an Ass overflows with characters, most of whom are stuffed into an overlong city comedy subplot about mercantalism, money, and greed, comfortable subjects of satire for Jonson. The supernatural content of this play is excellent, but scarce, limited to three roles and such a poverty of scenes you could count them on one hand. Moreover, Jonson's language is often utterly labyrinthine. It is not uncommon to read a passage like the following, which tantalizes with its elliptical imagery of demons, candles, and nightwalks, but insistently defies easy comprehension:

That you are the Wife
To so much blasted Flesh as scarce hath soul,
Instead of salt, to keep it sweet: I think,
Will ask no Witnesses to prove. The cold
Sheets that you lie in, with the watching Candle,
That sees, how dull to any thaw of Beauty,
Pieces and quarters, half and whole nights sometimes,
The Devil-given Elfine Squire, your Husband,
Doth leave you, quitting here his proper Circle,
For a much worse, i' the Walks of Lincolns-Inn,
Under the Elms, t' expect the Fiend in vain, there
Will confess for you.

This is one of the only plays I've read that directs you to its endnotes so that you may read plain-English paraphrasings of full speeches, which feels like an act of editorial surrender.

But The Devil is an Ass features such thrilling flashes of invention that I can't extend my critique too far. It's easy to imagine a highly-informed and fun-loving director and dramaturg going to town on this script, doing justice to its spirit but giving it a rather healthy facelift, so that audiences have no choice but to ask of Jonson's delightfully weird urban fantasy "Where have you been all my life?"

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Devil is an Ass is a total dog's breakfast of a play: I have a suspicion that if played at enormous speed, with no time for actors, characters or audience to think, it would probably be great fun to watch, but as literature, it is overstuffed: is it a pisstake of Dr Faustus? a reworking of The Alchemist? a city comedy with a dumb husband and an abused wife? a moral story that says we don't need a devil; there's enough tricksters and Machiavels (and their greedy dupes) in London anyway? a mockery of fake-possessions?

It's probably all of those things, which means there's just too much going on. Whereas other playwrights of the time you can see what their point is, this is scattershot in it targets and purposes, and comes out as a bit meaningless as a result.

I have seen The Alchemist done too slowly, and it doesn't work: this needs, likewise, to be done at the max. But whether it works as a text to read? jusry's out.

[Isabella · Rating 2 out of 5]

The Devil may be an ass but he was correct about Pug not being ready to wreak havoc on Earth yet. Pug spent the entire play being so incompetent at being bad that it is funny. Unfortunately, the play is not that funny. I don't know if I did not find it funny since most of the jokes did not age well in the past 400 years or if they were never funny. Since I liked the premise and the character Pug, I am going to give this play two stars out of five. I also liked how edgy this book was for being written in 1616.

[Isabel Sebode · Rating 4 out of 5]

the play seems to get a lot of bad rep but i actually love it, especially upon reading it the second time - mixes city comedy with infernal elements and comments on early modern consumerism and commodity fetishisation! (jonson knew what he was doing ahead of it time it seems…) also the opening is great: rarely do we see satan in hell mocking london’s marketplace

[Jiang Yuqi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Among the top 5 Renaissance plays I've ever read, not excluding Shakespeare. It's really a shame that Jonson stopped writing for public stage for 10 years after this one. He's on such a good momentum! Also, for a notoriously misogynic author like him, this play is surprisingly proto-feminist-ish.

[faerynde · Rating 5 out of 5]

review to come

[Simon Mcleish · Rating 3 out of 5]

Originally published on my blog here in October 1999.

Other than Volpone, I find Jonson's plays rather difficult to read, and I have never had the opportunity to see one on the stage. The main reason for both of these observations is to do with the large size of the cast and the lack of any large starring parts. (Shakespeare often also has large numbers of characters, but he generally writes at least one very dominant part which makes famous actors want to perform the play and also makes it easier to read - it's hard to forget who Hamlet is.)

The large casts make Jonson's plays confusing on the page, particularly when they have convoluted plots. On the stage they must be easier to follow. The Devil is an Ass is a satirical version of the Faust legend, as dramatised by Marlowe. A minor demon named Pug begs time off from his work in hell to go to Earth and cause mischief. The problem is that he is not very bright nor imaginative, and he finds that society is already far more sinful and wicked than anything he can conceive of. His tricks all go wrong - he gets employment as a servant, and seeks to cause trouble between his master and his wife by arranging for her to have an affair and him to find out; but she assumes that her jealous husband is trying to lay a trap for her.

I suspect that this, and the other parts of the plot, could be made great fun on stage, but I found that I had to concentrate so hard to follow what was going on that the play didn't grip me very strongly.

[Micah · Rating 2 out of 5]

The few that have the Seeds
Of goodness left, will sooner make their way
To a true life, by shame than punishment.

I've never read any other plays by this guy, but off this: Halfway through I'm like "If I ever meet Armando Iannucci, I'mma ask him what its like being the 21st century's Ben Jonson."

[Michael P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excessive events, a hallmark of Jonson's plays, is fully in force here, but the mystical elements go a long way to justifying them. However over the top, this play is just fun and really very good. Read it, because chances are you will never get to see it.

[Jenny Cooke (Bookish Shenanigans) · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's hard to read anything from this period and not compare it to Shakespeare but even so, it is very underwhelming and I didn't find it funny. Of course I am sure that there would be more comic potential if I saw it performed but as a reading experience it is not the best play of it's time.

[Bettie]

https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/50150