ABSTRACT
The opening scene of Ben Jonson’s Volpone following the prologue must have made a forceful impact on early modern audiences. Unusually, it brings the discovery space into play within the first two lines, and uses it furthermore to reveal not a person or persons (its most frequent function) but a material object: gold. Volpone and Mosca enter the stage together at the start of the scene, and Volpone’s opening lines direct the audience’s attention away from both of them and towards the centre back wall of the stage, where a curtain masks the object that pulls Volpone’s gaze and holds him in thrall:
Good morning to the day; and, next, my gold!
Open the shrine, that I may see my saint. 1
